Legal action ruled out to close asylum hotels

Stoke-on-Trent City Council leader Jane Ashworth ruled out taking legal action

Legal action to close down asylum hotels in Stoke-on-Trent has been ruled out until the city council knows it can win.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council leader Jane Ashworth said the authority would wait to see the outcome of court cases elsewhere in the country before launching its own action.

It comes after 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 during Thursday's full council meeting was prompted by an attempt to close down an asylum hotel in Essex.

Epping Forest District Council has launched a legal challenge to stop the Bell Hotel being used to house asylum seekers.

While 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.

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

She said: "It is not appropriate to do this right now. Firstly, there is no point in doing it, starting legal proceedings, until we know what the actual result is in the Epping case and other cases.

"To do something immediately is to chuck money at something when we don't know if there's any point in doing it yet."

She also warned that if people were removed from hotels there would be "an increased use of [houses in multiple occupation] to house asylum seekers".

Conservative group leader Dan Jellyman, who proposed the motion, told the meeting that asylum hotels should be brought to an end now and described them as "detention centres".

He said: "I do not believe it is correct to be housing migrants who are coming across the channel in hotels.

"In some cases it's creating ghettos in city centres, it's causing health issues in the hotels, it's causing an increase in community tensions and decrease in available rooms."

This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, which covers councils and other public service organisations.