No court action over asylum hotels – yet, says city leader

Authority waiting on verdict in Essex case

- Phil Corrigan Local Democracy Reporter

COUNCIL chiefs have ruled out taking legal action to close down asylum hotels in Stoke-on-Trent - until they know they can win.

Jane Ashworth, the Labour leader of Stoke-on-Trent City Council, says it will wait to see the outcome of court cases elsewhere in the country before launching its own action.

It comes as Labour councillors voted down a motion, proposed by the opposition Conservative group, which called on the authority to ‘immediately commence all necessary legal proceedings to close all migrant hotels’ in the city.

The debate was prompted by Epping Forest District Council’s legal bid to stop the Bell Hotel, in Essex, being used to house asylum seekers.

Although the Court of Appeal overturned the decision to grant the council an interim injunction, the full case is due to be heard at the High Court next month.

Cllr Ashworth told the meeting it would be premature for the city council to start its own action until the Epping Forest case set a precedent.