Overview
- Mr Justice Tim Mould dismissed Epping Forest District Council’s application for a permanent injunction, allowing the Bell Hotel to continue housing asylum seekers.
- The court accepted the current use may require planning permission but found an injunction was not just, convenient, or proportionate for planning enforcement.
- The judgment recorded no evidence that asylum seekers as a group are more prone to crime and said public order issues should be managed by police powers.
- The Home Office and Somani Hotels opposed the council’s case, following an interim order earlier this year that was overturned by the Court of Appeal as seriously flawed.
- The hotel became a protest flashpoint after criminal incidents involving a resident, yet the court found the planning and environmental harm from the present use to be limited.