Ruling recharges tensions over use of hotels as Kemi Badenoch urges councils to ‘keep going’ with legal actions
A temporary injunction that would have blocked asylum seekers from being housed at the Bell hotel in Epping, Essex, has been overturned by the court of appeal. Here we explain what the court decided, and its significance.
Last week, after an application by Epping Forest district council (EFDC), a high court judge ruled that asylum seekers could no longer be placed at the protest-hit Bell hotel and gave its owner, Somani Hotels, until 12 September to rehouse the 138 remaining there. Mr Justice Eyre granted the injunction, to remain in force until the case could be heard in full in October, after hearing EFDC’s complaints that planning law had been breached in changing the site’s use.
Somani Hotels challenged the decision at the court of appeal, as did the Home Office, which had been refused permission by Eyre to intervene in the high court case.
The three justices said both Somani Hotels and the Home Office, which it permitted to intervene in the case, could appeal against Eyre’s decision and quashed the temporary injunction in the meantime.
