The Home Office has withdrawn its controversial plans to house asylum seekers at the Stradey Park Hotel in Furnace, Llanelli.

Carmarthenshire County Council has long called for an end to the plans and applied unsuccessfully for an injunction in July.

Protests in the Welsh town have also been ongoing over recent months, with 43 arrests made in connection, local police have said.

Last week, the council’s leader and chief executive wrote to ministers and senior civil servants with concerns about ‘escalating community tensions’ and urged the Government to withdraw from the site.

Leader Darren Price said today: ‘I very much welcome the decision of the Home Office to withdraw its plans for the Stradey Park Hotel; it’s the right decision for the hotel and more importantly, it’s the right decision for the people of Furnace.

‘Now is the time for the community of Llanelli to come together, to heal from the experience of the past few months.’

Member of the Senedd for Llanelli, Lee Waters, said: ‘I'm glad the Home Office have finally seen sense and have realised their plans for Stradey were unworkable and wrong-headed.

‘But what a mess they have created, and now leave behind.

‘A cherished hotel has been wrecked by Tory incompetence and it is not clear what the owners now intend to do. They need to put right the damage they have caused.’

A Home Office spokesperson said the Government is ‘working hard to reduce the unacceptable use of hotels by moving asylum seekers into alternative, cheaper accommodation, doubling them up in hotel rooms, and clearing the legacy backlog’.