Council applies for injunction over asylum hotel

Several people have been arrested and charged over disorder during protests at The Bell Hotel

A district council has applied for an interim High Court injunction to stop migrants being housed at a hotel.

Hundreds of people have demonstrated outside The Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, in recent months, protesting against it being used to house asylum seekers.

Epping Forest District Council said there was a "clear risk of further escalating community tensions".

Its Conservative leader Chris Whitbread said: "We should not have to take this fight to the High Court, but we are left with no choice. It is now up to the judge."

He pointed to the "unprecedented levels of protest and disruption" witnessed near the hotel since last month.

The Home Office said: "It would be inappropriate to comment while legal proceedings are ongoing."

The council lodged the application earlier and asked that it take effect within 14 days in the event it is granted.

It is also "seeking a declaration" that the use of the hotel for the purposes of accommodating asylum seekers is not "akin to a hotel" and therefore not permitted under planning rules.

A spokesperson for the local authority said, as far as it was aware, there was no criminal record checking for individuals housed there and there were five schools and a residential care home within the vicinity.

"The current situation cannot go on. If The Bell Hotel was a nightclub we could have closed it down long ago," said the spokesperson.

"The use by the Home Office of the premises for asylum seekers poses a clear risk of further escalating community tensions already at a high, and the risk of irreparable harm to the local community."

The recent rounds of protests followed the arrest of a resident at the hotel, subsequently charged with sexual assault, harassment and inciting a girl to engage in sexual activity.

Hadush Kebatu, 41, from Ethiopia, has denied the offences and is in custody.

Twenty-eight people have since been arrested in relation to disorder at the hotel, and 16 of them have been charged.

Police officers said they were assaulted and their vehicles damaged during one of the protests.

Counter demonstrators from Stand Up To Racism have also been at the hotel.

Refugee charity Care4Calais, which supports asylum seekers in the hotel, said some had been left scared to go outside.

The Home Office says it has reduced the number of asylum hotels, from 400 in the summer of 2023, down to 210.