Overview

• The ruling on Friday overturned Epping Council’s temporary injunction and allowed the Bell Hotel to resume housing asylum seekers, with judges citing errors in the earlier order.
• Essex Police said three men were charged after Friday’s Epping protest and reported two officers slightly injured.
• The Metropolitan Police reported about 500 people at a west London protest on Saturday, five arrests, and a masked group attempting to enter an asylum hotel.
• Further demonstrations on Sunday drew several hundred people to the Bell Hotel, three arrests were made outside Epping Council, and tensions were reported in Falkirk and at a counter‑protest in Canary Wharf.
• With a record ~111,000 asylum applications in the past year and 32,059 people housed in over 200 hotels by late June, councils plan new legal bids, a mid‑October hearing will address longer‑term use of the Bell Hotel, and the government says it aims to end hotel use by 2029.