Dungavel immigration removal centre will stay open after the Home Office scrapped plans to close the facility.

The Home Office announced proposals in September last year to close the detention centre and open a new short-term holding facility near Glasgow Airport.

An application for a 51-bed centre in Paisley was then submitted the following month but Renfrewshire Council's planning committee voted unanimously against that application at the end of last year.

Now, the Home Office has revealed it has abandoned plans to close Dungavel following the rejection and the facility will remain open.

A Home Office spokesman said: "We always made clear that the closure of Dungavel immigration removal centre was dependent on the opening of a new short-term holding facility in Scotland.

"As the application for a new facility at Paisley was rejected, Dungavel will remain open."

After the planned closure of Dungavel was announced last year, immigration minister Robert Goodwill said: "Closing Dungavel immigration removal centre as a consequence fits with that approach and will result in a significant saving for the public purse."

The proposals for the facility near Glasgow Airport was knocked back due to "clear concern it would be detrimental to the economic development of the Glasgow Airport Investment Area" and "would also introduce an inappropriate use through the attendant noise, activity and disturbance".

The centre has long been a political issue, with MSPs demanding an end to the detention of children at the centre.

It led to a 2010 Westminster review which decided families detained north of the border would be moved to Yarl's Wood in Bedfordshire, which has specialist family and child facilities and support services.

In 2005, on the eve of the G8 summit held at Gleneagles, the facility was the site of a large protest over detaining asylum seekers and migrants.

The Home Office was "disappointed" by the decision of Renfrewshire Council to reject the application and said the plans were designed to provide a "modern and secure" facility for those with no right to be in the UK and would have allowed for the closure of Dungavel.

They pointed out that most recent inspection of Dungavel by Her Majesty's Inspector of Prisons found that the centre was a safe place where detainees are given the necessary support.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: "Asylum seekers and people with insecure immigration status should be treated with respect and dignity at all times.

"The Scottish Government supports calls for immigration detention to be limited to 28 days and for it to be replaced with community solutions.

"We are disappointed that the Home Office has indicated its intention not to close Dungavel.

"Scottish ministers have long been concerned about the situation there and have campaigned for its replacement with a more humane system."