Bell Hotel owner to learn fate as council tries to close down Epping migrant hotel

A High Court judge is to rule on whether an Essex council is successful in its bid for an injunction that would block asylum seekers from being housed in a hotel. Epping Forest District Council (EFDC) is taking legal action against Somani Hotels, which owns the Bell Hotel, claiming that accommodating asylum seekers there breaches planning rules.

The company opposes the claim, with its barristers telling a hearing in London last month that the move does not constitute a "material change of use". The Home Office is intervening in the case and told the court the council's bid is "misconceived".

Mr Justice Mould is expected to hand down judgment at 12pm on Tuesday.

A High Court judge granted EFDC a temporary injunction earlier this year that would have stopped 138 asylum seekers from being housed there beyond September 12.

But this was overturned by the Court of Appeal in August, which found the decision to be "seriously flawed in principle".

The council wants a permanent injunction, while Somani Hotels and the Home Office are opposing the claim.

Philip Coppel KC, for the council, told a hearing last month that using the hotel to accommodate asylum seekers in this way is a "material change" in its use and therefore breaches planning laws.

He said it has caused "increasingly regular protests" and has left residents "increasingly fearful".

The Bell became the focal point of several protests and counter-protests in the summer after an asylum seeker housed there was charged with sexually assaulting a teenage girl in Epping in July.

Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu, an Ethiopian national who arrived in the UK on a small boat days before the incident, was jailed for 12 months in September.

He was later mistakenly released from prison and re-detained.

A second asylum seeker who was a resident at the hotel, Syrian national Mohammed Sharwarq, was also jailed for 16 weeks in September after admitting assaulting two fellow residents and two members of staff at the site.

The Bell Hotel first housed asylum seekers from May 2020 to March 2021 and accommodated single adult males from October 2022 to April 2024, with the council taking no enforcement action.

Barristers for Somani Hotels previously told the High Court that the company applied for planning permission for a "temporary change of use" in February 2023, but later withdrew the application as it had not been determined by April 2024.

Jenny Wigley KC, for Somani Hotels, told the hearing in October that there had been "no breach" of planning laws and described the council's decision-making process on this as "seriously flawed".

She said the hotel reopened briefly in August 2022 but returned to housing asylum seekers after seeing its use "greatly reduced".