Hotel to continue housing asylum-seekers after landmark court ruling
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Asylum seekers can continue living at the Bell Hotel in Epping after the district council lost a landmark legal battle at the High Court to remove them.
But it seems unlikely that protesters who blockaded the building in the summer will allow the matter to rest there.
The BBC explains the reason:
“A wave of protests were staged outside the hotel in the summer, following the arrest of an asylum seeker living there who was later jailed for sexual offences.
“Epping Forest District Council sought to block migrants lodging at The Bell Hotel in Epping by arguing its owner had flouted planning rules.
“Mr Justice Mould [at the High Court] dismissed the claim on Tuesday, ruling an injunction was “not an appropriate means of enforcing planning control”.
“The judge said he accepted “the criminal behaviour of a small number of individual asylum seekers” housed at the hotel had “raised the fear of crime” among locals.
“But he rejected the idea that hotel owner Somani Hotels had shown a “flagrant or persistent abuse of planning control”.”
It was said that there was a “continuing need” to house asylum seekers with pending asylum claims, “so that the Home Secretary can fulfil her statutory duties”, and that if the district council was granted an injunction to stop the 138 asylum seekers living there, it could encourage other local authorities to seek similar outcomes.
So are courts now interpreting laws on the basis of what is convenient?
No, they’re not.
They are applying existing planning law and the test for injunctions.
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The reasoning looks like this:
Planning law already distinguishes between “use” of a building and the activities within it. The Home Office argued that block-booking rooms for asylum seekers does not, in law, change a hotel into a different planning category. That is an established principle: the use class is what matters, not the behaviour of occupants.
Injunctions are an exceptional enforcement tool. Mr Justice Mould said an injunction is “not an appropriate means of enforcing planning control”. That reflects long-standing case law: injunctions are granted only when normal enforcement is inadequate or when there is flagrant and persistent breach. The judge found neither criterion was met.
The “public interest” test is normal in injunction cases. Courts are required to consider wider consequences before granting injunctions. This includes foreseeable effects on public administration. The Home Office argument about “multiple other local authorities seeking similar outcomes” is not about convenience; it is about consistency and the functioning of national asylum duties set in statute.
Statutory duties are set by Parliament. The judge noted a “continuing need” to house asylum seekers so that the Home Secretary can meet her legal obligations. Courts cannot impose orders that would make lawful duties impossible to discharge unless the law explicitly authorises such intervention.
Local disorder or individual offending does not alter planning law. The judge accepted the impact on local sentiment, but that does not create a legal basis for an injunction. Courts cannot use public disorder as a proxy for changing the planning system.
So while the outcome may feel like a “convenience” ruling, legally it reflects the limits on what planning enforcement can achieve; the principle that injunctions must be proportionate and necessary; and Parliament’s existing asylum framework.
Will this placate protesters?
It doesn’t seem likely.
Local animosity is likely to rise again: the original protests were triggered by one high-profile criminal case; the perception that the Home Office imposed use of the hotel without consultation; and political actors amplifying local fears. Those factors have not changed. A court ruling does not settle community sentiment, so renewed hostility is a realistic outcome.
The council has no further legal route that will change the situation quickly. The High Court’s decision is final for this line of attack. Planning enforcement is effectively closed off because the court held that there had been no proven breach of planning law and an injunction is not a lawful or proportionate tool.
That removes the main legal mechanism that fuelled political expectations locally.
That said, the government’s “closure of hotels” plan pressures the Home Office, not the hotel. The Home Office says it intends to close all asylum hotels as its military-site rollout begins.
This creates contradictory signals locally: the hotel stays open now, but the government says hotels will close next year although no clear timetable exists.
Uncertainty itself can aggravate tensions.
Protest groups may see the ruling as provocation: far-right and anti-asylum networks often use legal defeats as mobilisation triggers.
5. Counter-protests are also likely: earlier in the year, opposition groups mobilised alongside the anti-asylum protests. A repeat would not be surprising, especially given how high-profile the Epping disputes have been.
If military barracks begin absorbing asylum-seekers elsewhere, the conflict may shift geographically, but not end: communities around new MoD sites are already showing signs of pressure and resistance.
Moving people from hotels to barracks does not remove public tension; it relocates it.
In short, the court decision settles the legality but not the politics.
The ingredients for renewed unrest remain: local grievance, national ambiguity, and active groups on both sides ready to mobilise.
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Court challenge forces Labour to reconsider compensating Waspi women over pensions
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The Labour government may be about to reverse its decision to refuse compensation to women who say they were not properly warned about the rise in the age at which they could claim the state pension.
Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden said information had come to light during an ongoing court case – about the effectiveness of letters sent out by the government of the day, warning women that the change was coming.
This has prompted him to revisit the decision to refuse compensation, he said – but he could not confirm or deny whether the decision would change.
For context, I wrote the following on December 17, 2024:
“Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) had called for payouts of £10,000 each after saying an estimated 3.6 million women were not properly informed of the rise in state pension age to bring them into line with men.
“And in March a parliamentary ombudsman recommended payouts of between £1,000 and £2,950 to those affected.
The rest of this article is over on The Whip Line – want to read it and all my other analysis? Subscribe to my Substack for full access and support independent UK political commentary.
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Do you believe businesspeople’s excuses for donating massively to right-wing politicians?
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Billionaire JCB chairman Lord Bamford has given £200,000 each to both the Conservative Party and Reform UK, saying he wans to support parties that “believe in small business”.
It doesn’t ring true.
According to The Guardian,
“The JCB chair, who has given millions of pounds to the Tories and bankrolled Boris Johnson’s wedding celebrations, disclosed the donation [to Reform UK] at the weekend, alongside one of equal size to the Conservatives.
“The donation to Reform marks the latest shift by Bamford to build closer connections with the party after funding an £8,000 helicopter trip for Farage last year. Reform has previously said its leader and Bamford are friends.
“Several Conservative donors have donated to Reform, including the financier Jeremy Hosking, and Charlie Mullins, who previously donated to the Tories through his business Pimlico Plumbers.”
The publicly stated rationale – that both parties “believe in small business” – is a stock line used to frame a donation in palatable, civic-minded terms.
It does not align well with the political economy around Reform UK, the Conservative Party, or Lord Bamford himself.
Let’s think about this…
The rest of this article is over on The Whip Line – want to read it and all my other analysis? Subscribe to my Substack for full access and support independent UK political commentary.
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Rats, malnutrition and overcrowding – not luxury – are common at asylum hotels
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Research has shown that a common claim about the way asylum-seekers are treated in the United Kingdom is false.
Here’s The Guardian:
“Asylum seekers living in hotels have reported rats, overcrowding and food so bad it leads to deficiencies, research has found.
“Profiting From People: Inside the UK’s Asylum Hotels, a report from the Refugee and Migrant Forum of Essex and London (Ramfel), draws on work with 493 people housed in asylum hotels between January 2023 and February 2025.
“Asylum seekers reported overcrowded conditions, including families of six living in a single room. Many described the food as largely inedible and others reported having a medical condition or disability with no adjustments made for them.
“The report has calculated that the Home Office’s three accommodation providers made a combined profit of £380m between September 2019 and August 2024. That equates to £146 a minute over five years. Despite ministers’ pledges to close asylum hotels as soon as possible, the report found the overall number had gone down by just three since Labour came to power.
“The Ramfel report found that asylum hotels were so overcrowded that if one person in a family room sat at a small table other family members only had space to stand up and that beds had to be used as dining tables and desks for children to do homework.
“Rats were common, with one family counting five in their room, while the food provided was either burnt or undercooked and frozen in the middle. The report included extracts from GP letters to the Home Office, raising alarm about the health of some in asylum hotels. Malnutrition and weight loss, particularly among children, was a recurring concern.”
So the hotels asylum-seekers are being housed in aren’t the five-star luxuries we were all led to believe they were. What a shocker!
Yes, I’m being sarcastic. It’s not a shock at all. We’re being told the outsourcing companies that took contracts to house asylum-seekers have spent as little as possible on them, extracting as much profit as they possibly could at the expense of human dignity and health.
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The timing is hugely conspicuous: The Ramfel report’s findings directly counter the long-running narrative that asylum hotels are indulgent luxuries.
It was a Conservative talking point for years, repeated heavily by ministers, MPs and aligned media.
It framed hotel use as an expensive indulgence created by “illegal migration”, and it helped justify harsh deterrence policies.
Since Labour took office, that party has instead emphasised cost, “illegal migration”, and the need to close hotels quickly.
But by continuing the outsourcing model, repeating Conservative framing about pressure on communities, and pursuing military sites, Labour has implicitly benefited from the old narrative’s lingering public perception: that hotels are both costly and overly comfortable.
The contractors certainly contributed to the impression of high-priced accommodation.
Daily room rates paid through Home Office contracts were substantial, and the companies involved had every incentive to describe costs in ways that justified high invoices.
Those figures were often presented in public discourse without context about the actual conditions, helping fuel the myth of comfort while disguising profit margins.
The documented conditions – rats, severe overcrowding, inedible food, and malnutrition – instead expose a system that is both degrading and wasteful.
Set against that, the Home Office is currently pushing a shift to military bases – and this is why the timing of the Ramfel report’s release seems conspicuous.
Publishing a report that makes the existing system look untenable creates a context in which ministers can argue that moving people onto military barracks is a necessary, even compassionate, alternative.
It reframes the debate away from whether military sites are appropriate and towards whether they are less bad than the hotels.
That is a helpful narrative if the goal is to normalise placing hundreds of vulnerable people in quasi-detention environments.
The public focus on the private contractors’ combined profit – £380 million over five years, or £146 a minute – also sets up a contrast that works in the government’s favour: large sums paid to corporations versus the “cheaper” option of bases.
It diverts attention from the fact that both models stem from the same underlying policy failure – the decision to reduce processing of asylum claims to a trickle while the number of migrants making them increased to a torrent.
The Liberal Democrats have said it would be much more productive to task more civil servants with processing claims, saying the backlog could be cleared within six months.
Labour says increased processing is part of its strategy.
Well, it’s November 11 as I write this. Shall we check the situation again on May 11, 2026?
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