Campaigners plan to bombard Home Office minister Beverley Hughes with questions when she visits Bicester next week to discuss controversial plans for an asylum seekers' centre.

MP Tony Baldry has suggested that members of the Bicester Action Group should be given the chance to meet Ms Hughes separately, rather than at a general meeting with town, district and county councillors.

A member of the group, Dionne Arrowsmith, said: "It's better to have separate meetings so we don't get bogged down with councillors over technical planning matters.

"We want to ask the minister what happens to the asylum seekers who are accepted, and those who walk away."

Mr Baldry said there was widespread concern about the proposed centre on 34 acres of Ministry of Defence land near Bullingdon prison, designed to house 750 asylum-seekers. Warning that many councillors were also worried, he said: "I think Ms Hughes should be prepared to have meaningful talks with members of Bicester Action Group and district and county councillors.

"We don't just want a photo opportunity of the minister at the site."

Mr Baldry claimed the Treasury was putting pressure on the Home Office to build huge centres on "cheap Government-owned land well away from London".

He added: "I believe that really the Home Office would prefer to do what all the agencies want, that is for small centres to be built close to where asylum seekers arrive." In the House of Commons this week Mr Baldry lost his appeal for the Government to pay compensation to home-owners who claimed their houses had been devalued.

The whole of the Conservative party supported him, but was out-voted.

A spokesman for the Home Office said earlier this week that Ms Hughes was expected to visit Bicester, but the details had not yet been confirmed.