More councils across England are set to take legal action to remove ‘asylum seekers’ from staying at hotels in their areas.
It follows the High Court ruling that granted a district council a temporary injunction to block asylum seekers from staying at The Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex.
The court sided with Epping Forest district council after the authority claimed that placing asylum seekers in the Bell was a “clear breach of planning permission” because it was no longer being used as a hotel.
Thousands of people have protested outside the hotel, that housed single male migrants, after an asylum seeker living there was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl.
BBC reports: All 12 councils controlled by Reform UK will “do everything in their power to follow Epping’s lead”, the party’s leader Nigel Farage said. A Conservative-run council in Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, also said it is considering taking similar action.
Border Security Minister Dame Angela Eagle said the government will “continue working with local authorities and communities to address legitimate concerns”.
Writing in the Telegraph, external, Farage urged people “concerned about the threat posed by young undocumented males living in local hotels” to “follow the example of the town in Essex” in peaceful protest.
The judge in the case ruled in favour of Epping Forest District Council after it argued that the hotel had become a public safety risk because of its alleged planning law breach by ceasing to be a true hotel.
The case returns in October, when a judge will have to decide whether The Bell Hotel has unlawfully changed how it is being used.
Dan Jarvis, Minister of State for Security, told the BBC the government had “never thought that hotels were an appropriate source of accommodation for asylum seekers.”
When asked where the asylum seekers at the Bell Hotel would be moved to, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the government was “looking at options” to rehouse them in “suitably appropriate alternative accommodation.”
He said it was up to local councils to decide on whether to pursue similar legal action, but stressed that there were “quite specific circumstances” in the Epping case.
“The basis of the legal case was around a planning matter,” he added.
The case brought by Epping Forest was that the alleged planning breach had led to evidenced harms. Critically, these harms related to protests which had led to violence and arrests.
For other councils to follow suit they would have to show the High Court evidence of local harm.
‘Set a precedent’
Tory-run Broxbourne Council was the first local authority to declare it was seeking legal advice after the ruling “as a matter of urgency about whether it could take a similar action” over a hotel in Cheshunt.
Council leader Corina Gander told the BBC that Epping Forest District Council had “set a precedent”.
“The government has failed, and now local councils are standing up,” she said. “Enough is enough now.”
Meanwhile, the leader of South Norfolk District Council, also run by the Conservatives, said the council will not go down the same route over a hotel housing asylum seekers in Diss which has been the subject of protest.
Daniel Elmer said the authority was using planning rules to ensure it was families being housed in the area rather than single adult males.
Government ministers say they are braced for other councils to follow Epping’s lead.)
The ruling causes immediate practical difficulties for the Home Office, which has less than a month to find alternative accommodation for the asylum seekers currently housed at the Bell Hotel.
Reform MP Lee Anderson exposes Starmer’s ‘evil’ migration plan outside another so called asylum hotel.
Listen as he speaks t Express Investigations Editor Zak Garner-Purkis during a visit to another protest flashpoint: the Britannia Hotel in Canary Wharf.
Alongside the Bell Hotel in Epping, these sites have become focal points in the heated debate over using hotels to house asylum seekers – an issue that sits at the centre of Britain’s migrant crisis.
