BRITAIN says it saw a 29 percent fall in asylum applications between April and June this year owing to a sharp drop in Zimbabwean asylum claimants.

Only 405 Zimbabweans claimed asylum over the three months, down from 1,560 over the same period last year, the Home Office said.

In total, there were 4,365 applications for asylum -- a 29 percent fall on the 6,110 applications in same period last year. The drop in Zimbabwean applications accounted for two thirds of the entire reduction.

The figures will be flagged by Zimbabwean campaign groups in the UK as proof of suffocating immigration controls under the new Conservative government.

But they will be manna to the UK Home Office which will make representations to the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal in October, seeking to resume deportations to Zimbabwe on the basis of an improving political situation there.

An immigration lawyer said last night: “It’s perfect timing for the Home Office. They will say these figures are a reflection on the situation in Zimbabwe; that more Zimbabweans don’t see any more need to claim asylum because of a stabilised political environment.”

Campaign groups estimate that there are as many as 10,000 failed Zimbabwean asylum seekers in the UK whose future now depends on the new country guidance case set to be argued in October.

The deportation of Zimbabweans was frozen in November 2008 by the Court of Appeal decision in the country guidance case of RN (Zimbabwe) – which was reaffirmed in July.

In RN, the court said “the fact of having lived in the United Kingdom for a significant period of time and of having made an unsuccessful asylum claim are both matters capable of giving rise to an enhanced risk ...”

Figures from the Office for National Statistics showed the number of immigrants arriving in the UK in 2009 fell by four percent to 567,000, from 590,000 in 2008.

However, the number of people leaving the country last year dropped further -- by 13 percent -- to 371,000, from 427,000 in 2008.