Epping council eyes Supreme Court over asylum seeker hotel
Epping Forest District Council has asked for permission to take its case against a hotel housing asylum seekers to the Supreme Court.
Thousands of people have protested outside The Bell Hotel in Epping over the last two months.
The district council obtained a temporary injunction from the High Court which would have forced 138 asylum seekers to leave by 12 September.
The Court of Appeal overturned the ruling last week. The council confirmed on Monday it had taken the next steps to appealing the decision.
A council spokesperson said: “Indicating our intention to appeal does not commit us to further action but facilitates the later process, should we decide to do so.
“Refusal of the Court of Appeal to allow our request would not close our opportunity. The council would still have the right to apply directly to the Supreme Court.”
The district council had argued at the High Court that the site owner, Somani Hotels, had breached planning rules by not notifying the local authority of its plans for the Bell.
But Somani Hotels and the Home Office – which places migrants at the site – took the case to the Court of Appeal.
The judge there, Lord Justice Bean, said the temporary injunction ruling was “seriously flawed in principle”.
Conservative council leader Chris Whitbread had argued that the “intolerable strain on our community” caused by protests was reason to close the site.
However, Lord Justice Bean said this argument risked “encouraging further lawlessness”.
On Friday, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said the judgement proved that migrants had “more rights than the British people under [Keir] Starrman “.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said it “puts the rights of illegal immigrants above the rights of the British people”.
Border Security and Asylum Minister Dame Angela Eagle said the latest judgement would assist the government in ending the use of hotels in a “planned and orderly fashion”.
She added: “We all want the same thing, which is to get out of asylum hotels”.
