The Government officials is considering building a new immigration detention centre near Bicester, it has been announced.

The move comes just three years after a similar proposal was scrapped, following a protest campaign by local residents and a public inquiry.

The secure removal centre, which could open at Arncott by 2012, would hold up to 800 male inmates at any one time.

Home Office Minister Liam Byrne said yesterday the extra spaces, similar to those provided by Campsfield House in Kidlington, would help increase the number of deportations of ex-prisoners, failed asylum-seekers and immigration offenders.

The centre would also house asylum seekers whose cases had yet to be determined.

Local people have expressed concern at the idea. Rebecca Haines, 23, and her partner Stuart Panter, 25, who only moved to Arncott in October, were unhappy after learning of the proposal. Miss Haines, a mother of two, said: "I'm completely against it. From the moment we moved in, I have always felt it was a safe place and this will jeopardise that.

"All the kids play out on the village green, but if people are coming and going we will not feel safe."

Mr Panter, of Woodpiece Road, said they had struggled to get on the property ladder and feared if the centre was built their home would drop in value.

The proposed location for the centre, on Ministry of Defence-owned land known as Site A, is the same as that of the previous scheme, although in that case asylum seekers would have been allowed to move around the community freely.

Banbury MP Tony Baldry, who fought the earlier scheme, on which £30m was spent, said: "They are proposing a secure detention removal centre, where failed asylum seekers are detained prior to being deported. It would have the same security classification as Bullingdon Prison.

"I don't see any reason why a removal centre should have any impact on the local community."

But he admitted residents might be "anxious" and said he would address a public meeting in Arncott on Saturday.

Dionne Arrowsmith, co-founder of Bicester Action Group which rallied opposition to the previous project, said: "I think local people will be fairly moderate. You won't see the same outcry we had before."

Arncott is one of two sites where the Home Office said it would seek planning permission for deportation centres. The other is Yarls Wood, in Bedfordshire.