Overview

• A three-judge panel set aside the 19 August High Court order, calling it seriously flawed in principle and warning it could incentivise further protests around asylum accommodation.
• The ruling allows the 138 people currently housed at the Bell Hotel to remain beyond the 12 September deadline imposed by the earlier injunction.
• Judges faulted the lower court for failing to weigh the Home Office’s statutory duty to house asylum seekers and the system-wide disruption of closing a site and finding replacement capacity.
• Epping Forest District Council can continue its planning-law challenge at a substantive hearing listed for mid-October.
• Police prepared for fresh demonstrations and counter-protests following the decision, as ministers reiterated plans to end the use of hotels over this Parliament, with 32,059 asylum seekers in hotels at the end of June.