More than 400 asylum seekers a year have been placed in Bradford, according to newly-released figures.

Official statistics show the city has become home to 1,630 refugees in the last four years.

It has the sixth highest asylum-seeker population outside London - behind Glasgow, Birmingham, Leeds, Newcastle and Manchester.

Latest Home Office figures, from December 2003, show Bradford has 1,405 refugees living in houses, flats and hotel rooms paid for by the National Asylum Seekers Service (NASS).

Another 125 receive only cash - for food, clothes and travel.

People have been bussed to Bradford shortly after arriving in Britain after fleeing conflict-torn and poverty-stricken countries. The city's large Asian population makes it is easier to integrate refugees from the Indian sub-continent including Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Ann Cryer, Labour MP for Keighley, said: "I have experienced a lot of resentment from my ethnic minority constituents who see asylum seekers as queue jumpers. They do not understand why, if a member of their family wants to enter the country, they must go through lengthy procedures and that asylum seekers are granted immediate entry."

But Terry Rooney, Bradford North Labour MP, said: "Bradford is an ideal city for asylum seekers because it has an existing ethnic minority community and therefore the support network is already in place."

Home Secretary David Blunkett revealed asylum applications in Britain fell 41 per cent from 103,100 in 2002 to 61,050 last year.

In what will be seen as a boost for Mr Blunkett, the latest figures are almost twice the average reduction in the EU.

And he said the Government had hit its target to halve the number of applications per month from a peak in October 2002.

In the final three months of 2003, there were 10,830 new asylum seekers - down 52 per cent on the same period in 2002 and down nine per cent on July-to-September 2003.

Mr Blunkett said the numbers were dropping because of better border controls in France and tough new Government rules including restricting handouts.

Mr Blunkett also said the number of failed asylum seekers removed had increased 23 per cent. New measures to tackle the problem include:

l Plans to open a 330-capacity removal centre near Heathrow in August

l Reaching agreements with authorities in Iraq, Sri Lanka and China to return failed asylum seekers

l Negotiating an agreement to extend UK border controls to Belgian Channel ports and Eurostar trains from Brussels.