A Excessive Court docket choose is to determine if a resort has breached planning guidelines by changing into a web site for migrant lodging.
And the case that would have repercussions for councils throughout the nation the place asylum seekers are housed in inns.
Epping Forest District Council desires an interim injunction towards The Bell Lodge within the city, which is owned by Somani Accommodations, to forestall it getting used as migrant lodging, arguing the premises was not working as meant as a resort.
Legal professionals for the council known as it “a very serious problem” and stated it was creating “a feeding ground for unrest,” stating that there’s an “overwhelming case for an injunction”.
Opening the listening to on the Excessive Court docket in London on Friday, Philip Coppel KC, for the council, stated it was an issue that was “getting out of hand” and “causing great anxiety” to native folks.
Protests have taken place exterior the resort after two males staying there have been charged with sexual offences in separate incidents, together with one involving a 14-year-old lady.
Mr Coppel stated there was “no agreement between [asylum seekers] and the hotel, they do not choose the duration of their stay… they do not choose the type of room”.
The resort “is no more a hotel [to asylum seekers] than a borstal to a young offender”, he stated.
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Protesters close to The Bell Lodge in Epping in July. File pic: PA
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File pic: PA
Barristers for the resort group instructed the courtroom that an injunction would trigger asylum seekers “hardship” and that the transfer would set “a dangerous precedent that protests justify planning injunctions”.
Piers Riley-Smith, for Somani Accommodations Restricted, stated the corporate didn’t argue that residents’ issues “are not genuine”, however that they didn’t justify an interim injunction to cease the usage of the resort.
“Those particular ideological, non-community concerns are not relevant to planning,” he stated.
The council had “not shown any evidence” that it had “grappled with the hardship” that will be triggered to asylum seekers, the House Workplace and the corporate if a short lived injunction was granted, Mr Riley-Smith stated.
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Law enforcement officials forward of an indication exterior The Bell Lodge in July. Pic: PA
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Police exterior the resort throughout an indication in July. File pic: PA
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The barrister instructed the courtroom that what was taking place at The Bell Lodge “is occurring in hotels across the country” and that the House Workplace has a “statutory duty” to supply momentary emergency lodging for asylum seekers.
Throughout Mr Riley-Smith’s submissions, the choose, Mr Justice Eyre stated: “I think I can take judicial notice that there has been no diminution of the need for accommodation for asylum seekers.”
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Migrants had been housed on the resort from Might 2020 to March 2021, and from October 2022 to April 2024 and the courtroom heard the council by no means instigated any formal enforcement proceedings towards this use.
Council ‘totally fallacious’
In April 2025, they had been as soon as once more being positioned there and Mr Riley-Smith stated {that a} planning utility was not made “having taken advice from the Home Office”.
In written submissions, the barrister stated it was “entirely wrong” for the council to “suggest the use has been hidden from them”, saying it was “directly approached in February 2025 by the Home Office before the use began and alerted to the upcoming usage”.
He stated an injunction can be a “draconian step,” and warned granting one would trigger hurt.
“The main harm would be the loss of accommodation for asylum seekers currently being housed there under the Home Office’s statutory duties,” he stated.
Mr Justice Eyre is because of ship his choice on Tuesday.
