Court rules asylum seekers can stay at Epping hotel

Asylum seekers can continue living at an Essex hotel after a council lost a landmark legal battle at the High Court to remove them.

Epping Forest District Council sought to block migrants lodging at The Bell Hotel in Epping by arguing its owner had flouted planning rules.

Mr Justice Mould dismissed the claim on Tuesday, ruling an injunction was "not an appropriate means of enforcing planning control".

A wave of protests were staged outside the hotel in the summer, following the arrest of an asylum seeker living there who was later jailed for sexual offences.

The judge said he accepted "the criminal behaviour of a small number of individual asylum seekers" housed at the hotel had "raised the fear of crime" among locals.

But he rejected the idea that hotel owner Somani Hotels had shown a "flagrant or persistent abuse of planning control".

It was also said there was a "continuing need" to house asylum seekers with pending asylum claims, "so that the Home Secretary can fulfil her statutory duties".

A judge previously awarded the council a temporary injunction in August, but this was later overturned at the Court of Appeal after the Home Office stepped in.

Its lawyers told the court that if Epping Forest District Council was granted an injunction to stop the 138 asylum seekers living there, it could encourage other local authorities to seek similar outcomes.

Tuesday's ruling then superseded this and became a final decision on the hotel's operation.

Reacting to it, the Conservatives said the court had given a "slap in the face to the people of Epping".

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said: "The people of Epping have been silenced in their own town."

Ken Williamson, a cabinet member on Epping Forest District Council, said the authority had been "outgunned by bigger and more powerful interests".

"What we saw in court was an unholy alliance of lawyers for government and big business intent on protecting huge profits and an indefensible asylum policy," he added.

But a Home Office spokesman said the judgement allowed it to continue its work to close every asylum hotel in an "orderly, planned and sustained programme".

Enver Solomon, chief executive at the Refugee Council, added the government needed to take a different approach towards ensuring all hotels were closed next year and described plans to house people in military sites as "unsuitable, isolating" and "expensive".

Hadush Kebatu, an Ethiopian national who arrived in the UK on a small boat and was convicted of sex offences while living at the Epping hotel, was jailed for a year in September.

He had been released in error from prison and re-detained after a three-day manhunt - before his deportation in October.

Some of the protests outside The Bell Hotel following Kebatu's arrest turned violent - and three men were jailed in October for punching, kicking and pushing police officers.

Mr Justice Mould said earlier: "The claimant's desire to find a swift resolution to the disruption to public order and the community tensions which followed the outbreak of street protests on 11 July 2025 was reasonable.

"It does not however follow that the solution lay in an application for an injunction."

Philip Coppel KC, for the council, previously accused Somani Hotels of "sidestepping" planning laws when turning The Bell Hotel into asylum seeker accommodation.

He said the company was driven by "the lure of a trove of government-funded profits".

However, Home Office lawyer James Strachan KC told one of the hearings that block-booking rooms at The Bell Hotel "does not change its use as a hotel".

He argued that it was not in the public interest to grant an injunction, when considering "the backdrop of multiple other local authorities seeking similar" rulings.

The hotel has been housing asylum seekers in spells since May 2020, a service Somani Hotels claimed had been a financial lifeline.

It applied for planning permission for a "temporary change of use" in February 2023, but the High Court was previously told this was withdrawn after it had not been determined by April 2024.

Jenny Wigley KC, for Somani Hotels, told the hearing in October that there had been "no breach" of planning laws and described the council's decision-making process on this as "seriously flawed".