ASYLUM seekers face rapid removal from Scotland and restrictions on their right to appeal deportation under plans to replace the notorious Dungavel holding centre with a "short-term" unit near Glasgow Airport, campaigners warn.

The Home Office yesterday announced the closure of the controversial Strathaven-based facility, which has held thousands of refugees and their families since 2001.

Many of the refugees were locked up indefinitely, including four children in the Ay family from Kurdistan who were incarcerated for more than a year before deportation, sparking long-standing campaigns to close the immigration unit in South Lanarkshire.

Last night Conservative immigration minister Robert Goodwill said that asylum seekers will spend less than a week in the new 'short term' centre which has easy access to London airports - a departure point for most deportations - and mean those with "no right to be in the UK can be removed with less delay".

He added that the replacement unit, which would open by the end of 2017, involve a “significant saving” for taxpayers.

Human rights campaigner Robina Qureshi, the director of migrant homeless charity Positive Action in Housing, said Dungavel had been a "scar" on Scottish soil that contributed to the suicide of several asylum seekers.

But she raised concerns about the plans for its replacement.

Ms Qureshi said: "A short term holding facility will be built at Glasgow airport making it easier to remove people to London Airports from where most removals take place.

"It will be harder for lawyers and support networks to organise appeals at the eleventh hour. “

Former immigration lawyer, Stuart McDonald MP, said the decision to move the detention centre did not appear to be an attempt to reduce the volume of detainees but a tactic to "keep them beyond the reach of their legal advisors".

The SNP spokesman for Immigration, Asylum and Border Control, said: "The new short-term facilities location will give the government easy access to Glasgow Airport and also to airports in London, therefore making it easier for the UK government to continue its policy of forced removal of migrants who have settled in the UK, and there is a risk that people who have been living in Scotland will have little opportunity to challenge their deportation.”

The Scottish Government, which has campaigned to replace Dungavel with a "humane" alternative, has sought an urgent clarification from the UK Government on their proposals and guarantees over the treatment of Scotland-based asylum seekers.

Angela Constance, Cabinet Secretary for Communities, Social Security and Equalities, said: “By introducing a rapid removal facility there is a real risk that people who have been living in Scotland will either have their opportunities to challenge their deportation restricted or be taken to immigration removal centres far away from their families, friends and legal representation."

This view was echoed by Gary Christie, of the Scottish Refugee Council, who demanded "swift assurances" from the Home Office that Dungavel refugees would not be "moved indiscriminately" to other detention units across the UK.

He said: "We know that being moved around the UK has an impact on people's ability to access legal advice as Scottish solicitors cannot represent people if they are moved away to centres in England.

"Loneliness and isolation put people's health and wellbeing at further risk, and this will only worsen if people are moved away from their support networks."

Campaigns to close the Dungavel, a former prison, were launched within months of its opening.

It was claimed that men, women and children were being "psychologically terrorised 24 hours a day" and incarcerated despite having committed no crime.

By 2006 more than 120 children were being held at Dungavel.

For its work campaigning against the detention of children at the centre , The Herald won Newspaper of the Year in 2003.

The practice ceased only in 2010 when the then Coalition Government announced that children would instead be held at a facility in Bedfordshire.

Last year HM Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) found that one resident had been held at Dungavel for two-and-a-half years.

Inspectors also highlighted concerns that vulnerable people, including alleged rape and torture victims, were being detained, despite a presumption they should be locked up only in exceptional circumstances.

An independent report published earlier this year said that the length of time people were being held was causing their mental health to deteriorate and warned of unacceptable accommodation as well as long waits to see a GP or dentist.

Detainees suspected of being in sham marriages were also asked their wife’s bra size and the colour of her underwear.

The investigation, spearheaded by former prisons and probation ombudsman Stephen Shaw, described the tests as “questionable” while others said the practice was demeaning.

Dungavel House, the only such centre in Scotland, holds up to 249 detainees but is said to be under used because of its remote location.

The planned new centre, which still needs approval from Renfrewshire Council, would have just 51 beds.