Epping Council loses challenge to use of hotel as asylum accommodation

Epping Forest District Council has lost its legal challenge in which it sought an injunction to prevent the Bell Hotel being used as asylum accommodation. The case is Epping Forest District Council v Somani Hotels Limited [2025] EWHC 2937 (KB). The Home Secretary and Clearsprings Ready Homes Limited were both interveners in the case.

The usual disclaimer applies, in that this is a planning challenge and as such I am wholly unequipped to explain it to you. Having said that, judging from previous coverage I can probably do a better job than some journalists – hence this post.

Background

The background to the case is also set out in detail here. The Bell Hotel in Epping had been used as asylum accommodation for a couple of periods during and since the pandemic. This contract meant that in 2021 the hotel made a net profit of £605,909, whereas in the four years before this there had been net losses. On that note – RAMFEL have published a timely new report today “Profiting from People: Inside the UK’s Asylum Hotels”.

The hotel was closed for a year from April 2024 before re-opening to be used as asylum accommodation in April 2025. In April 2025 the council started looking into “the feasibility of enforcement by way of a stop notice” because of a lack of planning permission for the change of use.

In May 2025 Somani advised the council that they would not be making a change of use application, on advice from the Home Office that this was not needed. Epping did not ask for a copy of that advice until three days before filing the claim form for this case.

On 8 July 2025 a man who was accommodated at the hotel was arrested and charged with sexual assault (he was subsequently convicted, released from prison early by accident, and deported). This led to large protests outside the hotel and there were violent and disorderly incidents associated with those, including assaults on hotel staff and police officers, projectiles thrown at police and damage caused to the hotel and to police vans and vehicles. 25 people were arrested in connection with offences at the protests between 13 and 24 July 2025 and 16 people were charged.

Shortly after this, the council unanimously passed a motion calling for the immediate and permanent closure of the hotel. Following this, the council sought legal advice on the use of the hotel and enforcement options available and they commenced these proceedings.

The protests continued into August and September with further arrests including on suspicion of inciting racial hatred and racially or religiously aggravated criminal damage. Also in August, another man living at the Bell hotel was arrested for alleged offences of common assault and battery against the other men living at the hotel.

The council briefly succeeded in obtaining interim relief preventing the hotel being used as asylum accommodation in August, before the decision was overturned in September without the order ever coming into force.

Decision on application for an injunction

Today’s decision is on the substantive injunction application, under section 187B of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. Epping’s position was that the use of the hotel to accommodate people in the asylum system required planning permission which had not been granted. As a result, they argued that the use of the hotel in this way was a breach of planning control and liable to enforcement action (the injunction). The hotel’s owners, Somani, did not accept that the use had changed.

The court summarised the dispute at paragraph 164 as follows:

It has been the consistent position of the local planning authority since November 2022, as stated by Mr Stubbs, the Claimant’s Planning Enforcement and Compliance Manager, that the use of the Bell has changed from its former use as a hotel to use as a hostel for the purpose of accommodating asylum seekers. Whereas the Defendant has been equally consistent in stating its position that in accommodating asylum seekers between March 2020 and early 2021, between November 2022 and April 2024, and now since early April 2025, the Bell remains in use as a hotel.

The court was critical of several elements of the council’s conduct, including the failure to keep a contemporaneous record of decisions being taken relating to the litigation, particularly since the council also failed to give notice to Somani prior to applying for the injunction to explain their reasons for doing so.

The council tried to argue that “due to the difficult or traumatic experiences which they have suffered, certain occupants of asylum accommodation may have a “greater propensity” to anti-social or criminal behaviour”. The court rightly gave this argument short shrift, stating:

In my judgment, in order to begin to consider whether there is any force or substance in that contention, I should need to see an evidence based and clear and statistically sound analysis of the relative incidence of criminal and anti-social behaviour amongst asylum seekers, as a defined cohort of persons, in comparison to a properly defined cohort of the settled population. There is no such evidence before the court. The fact that persons accommodated in asylum accommodation pursuant to sections 95 and 98 of the 1999 Act from time to time commit criminal offences or behave anti-socially provides no reliable basis for asserting any particular propensity of asylum seekers to engage in criminal or anti-social behaviour. Persons who are members of the settled population also commit crimes and behave anti-socially from time to time.

The court dismissed the council’s application, concluding that:

I have reached the clear conclusion that this is not a case in which it is just and convenient for this court to grant an injunction. I give due respect to the Claimant’s judgment that the current use of the Bell as contingency accommodation for asylum seekers constitutes a material change in the use of those premises which requires planning permission. Nevertheless, I have not been persuaded that an injunction is a commensurate response to that postulated breach of planning control. The breach is far from being flagrant. Conventional methods of enforcement have not been taken. Taking a broad view, the degree of planning and environmental harm resulting from the current use of the Bell is limited. The continuing need for hotels as an important element of the supply of contingency accommodation to house asylum seekers in order to enable the Home Secretary to discharge her statutory responsibilities is a significant counterbalancing factor. This is decidedly not a case in which there is an abuse of planning control resulting in serious planning or environmental harm which now demands an urgent remedy. In my judgment, it is not appropriate to grant an injunction on the Claimant’s application for the purpose of restraining the use of the Bell as contingency accommodation for asylum seekers.

The court said that this decision was limited to the granting of an injunction under section 187B of the 1990 Act and the council may still have alternative options to pursue. 

Conclusion

The Home Office could dramatically reduce, if not completely end, the use of hotels in a relatively short period of time. It has perfectly viable alternatives, including these recommendations from the Refugee Council. The problem, presumably, is that those alternatives are far more humane options than the mass accommodation options that they are pursuing. All while it continues to make an increasing mess of the asylum system – with, it seems, more to come next week.