A High Court judge is to decide if a hotel has breached planning rules by becoming a site for migrant accommodation.
And the case that could have repercussions for councils across the country where asylum seekers are housed in hotels.
Epping Forest District Council wants an interim injunction against The Bell Hotel in the town, which is owned by Somani Hotels, to prevent it being used as migrant accommodation, arguing the premises was not operating as intended as a hotel.
Lawyers for the council called it “a very serious problem” and said it was creating “a feeding ground for unrest,” stating that there is an “overwhelming case for an injunction”.
Opening the hearing at the High Court in London on Friday, Philip Coppel KC, for the council, said it was a problem that was “getting out of hand” and “causing great anxiety” to local people.
Protests have taken place outside the hotel after two men staying there were charged with sexual offences in separate incidents, including one involving a 14-year-old girl.
Mr Coppel said 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 hotel “is no more a hotel [to asylum seekers] than a borstal to a young offender”, he said.
File pic: PA
Barristers for the hotel group told the court that an injunction would cause asylum seekers “hardship” and that the move would set “a dangerous precedent that protests justify planning injunctions”.
Piers Riley-Smith, for Somani Hotels Limited, said the company did not argue that residents’ concerns “are not genuine”, but that they did not justify an interim injunction to stop the use of the hotel.
“Those particular ideological, non-community concerns are not…
