Council bids to shut down Epping asylum seeker hotel

A protest-hit migrant hotel has become a “feeding ground for unrest”, a council seeking to ban its use for asylum seekers has argued.

- HOLLY BANCROFT HOME AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT

Epping Forest District Council had applied for a High Court injunction in a bid to stop asylum seekers being housed at The Bell Hotel, which has been the site of a series of violent protests in recent weeks.

At a hearing at the High Court yesterday, the council told the court that “allowing the status quo is wholly unacceptable, providing a feeding ground for unrest and protest”.

In documents presented to the court, it argued that the use of the hotel for asylum seekers was “a danger to school-age students about to start the new school year, a valid source of anxiety for their parents and teachers, and a disfigurement of the local environment”.

Demonstrators descended on the hotel in July after an asylum seeker was charged with sexual assault for allegedly attempting to kiss a 14-year-old girl. Hundreds of anti- and pro-immigration protesters have since been demonstrating at the site, with far-right activists also turning up to exploit the situation.

This week, a second asylum seeker staying at the hotel was charged with sexually assaulting a man aged over 16, as well as a number of assault charges.

Philip Coppel KC, representing the council, said that the hotel use was “a very serious problem” which was “getting out of hand”. He said the situation had arisen “because of a breach of planning control by the defendant”, Somani Hotels Ltd.

Somani Hotels is defending the claim, with its barristers telling the court that an injunction would cause asylum seekers “hardship” and that the move would set “a dangerous precedent that protests justify planning injunctions”.