Asylum seekers can continue to be housed at an Essex hotel that became a flashpoint for anti-immigration protests during the summer, the high court has ruled.
Lawyers for the local district council had sought a permanent injunction against the current use of the Bell hotel in Epping, arguing at the high court that it was a “feeding ground for unrest and protest”.
The application was opposed by the property’s owner, Somani Hotels, while the Home Office also intervened in the case, arguing that the closure of asylum hotels must be “structured” and gradual.
Mr Justice Mould ruled on Tuesday that Epping Forest district council (EFDC) had a “reasonable basis” for its view that the current use of the Bell required planning permission and that it was in breach of planning control.
However, he rejected the council’s case that Somani’s use of the Bell to accommodate asylum seekers was a “flagrant” or “persistent” abuse of planning control.
Victory for the council would have thrown the Home Office’s scheme to continue housing tens of thousands of asylum seekers in hotels into turmoil while plans are being developed to use disused military bases and other sites as an alternative.
The hotel, which is on the outskirts of Epping, became the focus for increasingly large protests during the summer. While local people were among those involved, far-right activists and others from outside the area sought to exploit tensions after Hadush Kebatu, an asylum seeker who was living in the hotel, sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl and a woman.
Kebatu was deported last month to Ethiopia. But protests have continued outside the hotel, where two security guards were assaulted in what police described as a “racially motivated attack” during the summer.
Police were also attacked and made dozens of arrests as the protests spilled over into violence in July. Calls for renewed protests were made by far right activists after the judgment.
Mould said he accepted there was a reasonable basis for local concerns about crime, which he said did not arise “in earnest” until claims about Kebatu became public.
But he ruled that the current use of the Bell – one of about 200 hotels that are in temporary use as asylum accommodation under Home Office contracts – could nevertheless continue.
“Taking a broad view, the degree of planning and environmental harm resulting from the current use of the Bell is limited,” he said in a 87-page ruling.
“The continuing need for hotels as an important element of the supply of contingency accommodation to house asylum seekers in order to enable the home secretary to discharge her statutory responsibilities is a significant counterbalancing factor.”
He found that it was primarily for the police to enforce public order and Essex police had done that.
The judge said that while the council had objected earlier this year to the use of the hotel to house asylum seekers, it did not do so at the time on planning grounds.
The council decided to take enforcement action in August in the light of protests that began the previous month. A temporary injunction was granted before being overturned.
The council is now faced with the option of going back to the much slower process of taking enforcement action by serving notice of a breach of planning controls.
After the ruling, a Home Office spokesperson said: “We are furious at the level of illegal migrants and asylum hotels in this country.
“This government will close every asylum hotel. Work is well under way to move asylum seekers into more suitable accommodation such as military bases, to ease pressure on communities across the country. We are working to do so as swiftly as possible as part of an orderly, planned and sustained programme. This judgment allows us to do that.”
A statement from Epping Forest district council described the ruling as “a devastating decision for local democracy” and claimed it was “outgunned by bigger and more powerful interests”.
“Local people must have some control over local decisions. But 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,” the council said in a statement by councillor Ken Williamson, holder of the ”shaping our district” cabinet portfolio.
Charities including the Refugee Council said the government had won at the high court but called on it to ensure all hotels were closed by next year, abandon plans to “warehouse” people in military barracks and grant temporary permission to stay for people from countries whose asylum applications succeed.
“Hotels are not an appropriate long-term solution to housing people seeking asylum. They are flashpoints for community division, cost the taxpayer billions, and leave people who are fleeing persecution and violence in countries like Sudan and Afghanistan in limbo,” said Enver Solomon, chief executive at the Refugee Council.
Sile Reynolds, head of asylum advocacy at Freedom from Torture, said: “A botched effort to rush asylum cases through the process has left survivors languishing in hotels while they wait for an appeal court to correct unsafe refusals of protection.”
