Epping Forest District Council in Essex asked a judge to intervene after continued protests outside the Bell Hotel following the alleged sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl by a migrant staying there.
Asylum seekers must be removed from the hotel by 12 September.
“It shows that the Government cannot ignore planning rules, just like no-one else can ignore planning rules,” he added.
Leader of Reform UK Nigel Farage reacted with glee to the High Court ruling and said that all local councils controlled by his party will look to follow Epping’s lead.
They are; Derbyshire, Doncaster, Kent, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire, Leicestershire, Warwickshire, Durham, North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire.
Reform Party leader Nigel Farage (Photo: Rasid Necati Aslim/Anadolu via Getty Images)The Midland Hotel and Station Hotel in Derby, for example, has been used by the Home Office to locate asylum seekers for several years.
Writing in The Telegraph, Farage said: “Let’s hold peaceful protests outside the migrant hotels, and put pressure on local councils to go to court to try and get the illegal immigrants out; we now know that together we can win.”
What about the Conservatives?
Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick has turned out in support of the protests in recent weeks and shadow home secretary Chris Philp said ending crossings into the country would “stop the hotels”.
The Cresta Court hotel in Altrincham (pictured) has been used to house migrants in the North West, which has been targered by anti-migrant influencers. (Photo: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)The Conservatives have more than 5,000 councillors and currently control 56 of the 152 local authorities in the UK.
Although the Labour party is now in Government, its local councillors have also opposed the use of hotels for asylum seekers in many areas of the country.
Earlier this month, Labour leader Karen Kilgour reiterated her position that the hotel is “unsuitable accommodation” for asylum seekers and that talks are continuing with the Home Office.
Chris Whitbread, the leader of Epping Forest District Council, speaks to the media outside the High Court after the ruling yesterday (Photo: Carl Court/Getty Images)
The council is currently led by Labour but has previously been a Tory stronghold and the party remains under pressure locally to resolve the issue.
Of the Epping ruling, Evans added: “It’s great for residents and we’re working on this now.”
How likely are copycat injunctions to be successful?
A number of local authorities have previously attempted to use planning laws to challenge the use of hotels for asylum seekers, with mixed results.
However, Great Yarmouth council in Norfolk succeeded with a similar injunction to Epping’s in 2018 because they argued hotels intended for use for asylum seekers were part of a “protected tourism area”.
Edward Brown KC also said the injunction would “substantially interfere” with the Home Office’s statutory duty in potentially avoiding a breach of the asylum seekers’ human rights.
But Philip Coppel KC, for the council, said that the Home Office’s request was “a thoroughly unprincipled application made in a thoroughly unprincipled way”, and that the department knew of the injunction bid last week but “sat on their hands”.
Police form a line between anti-immigration demonstrators and counterprotesters outside the Barbican Thistle hotel in London (Photo: Toby Melville/Reuters)Asked whether other migrant hotels have the proper planning permission, Mr Jarvis said: “Well, we’ll see over the next few days and weeks.
“I think the important point to make is that nobody really thinks that hotels are a sustainable location to accommodate asylum seekers.
“That’s precisely why the Government has made a commitment that, by the end of this Parliament, we would have phased out the use of them.”
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