Epping hotel can house asylum seekers, High Court judge rules

The Bell Hotel has been the site of protests

An Epping hotel at the centre of protests earlier this year can continue to house asylum seekers, a High Court judge has ruled. The Bell Hotel in Essex has been given the go-ahead after Epping Forest District Council failed to secure a High Court injunction that would block them from living there.

The council took legal action against the hotel owner, Somani Hotels, claiming that accommodating asylum seekers there breaches planning rules. Lawyers for Epping Forest District Council (EFDC) said the housing of asylum seekers is a “material change of use” and has caused “increasingly regular protests”.

The Home Office intervened in the case, telling the court the council’s bid was “misconceived”.

Mr Justice Mould dismissed the claim on Tuesday and said in a judgment that it is “not a case in which it is just and convenient for this court to grant an injunction”.

EFDC were granted a temporary injunction earlier this year following protests outside the hotel, which would have stopped 138 asylum seekers being housed there beyond September 12.

But this was overturned by the Court of Appeal in August, which found the decision to be “seriously flawed in principle”.

EFDC then sought a permanent injunction through a three-day hearing last month.

Mr Justice Mould said Epping Forest District Council had not called evidence to support an argument over the propensity of asylum seekers to commit crimes or take part in anti-social behaviour.

He continued: “In my judgment, in order to begin to consider whether there is any force or substance in that contention, I should need to see an evidence-based and clear and statistically sound analysis of the relative incidence of criminal and anti-social behaviour amongst asylum seekers, as a defined cohort of persons, in comparison to a properly defined cohort of the settled population.

“There is no such evidence before the court.

“The fact that persons accommodated in asylum accommodation pursuant to sections 95 and 98 of the 1999 Act from time to time commit criminal offences or behave antisocially provides no reliable basis for asserting any particular propensity of asylum seekers to engage in criminal or anti-social behaviour.

“Persons who are members of the settled population also commit crimes and behave antisocially from time to time.”