Government wins right to appeal against Bell Hotel closure for asylum seekers

The Court of Appeal has overturned a decision on whether asylum seekers can be housed at the Bell Hotel in Epping.

The owners of the Essex hotel challenged a High Court ruling alongside the Home Office which stopped asylum seekers from being housed there beyond September 12.

Following a court hearing on Thursday, Lord Justice Bean, Lady Justice Nicola Davies and Lord Justice Cobb have handed down their verdict at the Royal Courts of Justice in London.

Reading a summary of the ruling, Lord Justice Bean said: ‘We should say at the outset what this appeal is not about.

‘It is not concerned with the merits of government policy in relation to the provision of accommodation for asylum seekers in hotels or otherwise.’

Epping Forest district council applied for the temporary injunction after the presence of asylum seekers drew large protests and counter-protests outside the hotel.

These began after an asylum seeker housed at the Bell Hotel was charged with sexually assaulting a teenage girl last month.

Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu is currently on trial for the offence after pleading not guilty.

Another man who was living at the site, Syrian national Mohammed Sharwarq, has separately been charged with seven offences.

Several other men have been charged over alleged disorder outside the hotel.

Who owns the Bell Hotel in Epping?

The council claimed Somani Hotels, who own the hotel, breached planning rules by using the property as housing for asylum seekers.

This is despite the hotel being used to house asylum seekers before: from May 2020 to March 2021, from October 2022 to April 2024, and since April of this year.

In court, Robin Green, representing the authority, said it had not previously taken enforcement action against Somani Hotels over the use of the Bell as it had been ‘unproblematic’.

Lawyers for both the Home Office and Somani Hotels said the injunction created ‘a risk of a precedent being set’

Since then, other councils have said they will seek legal advice over whether they could achieve similar injunctions for hotels in their areas.

What does the ruling mean for asylum seekers?

Right now, the future for asylum seekers living at the Bell Hotel is filled with uncertainty.

One migrant, a Somalian man given the fake name Abdi, spoke to the BBC about the situation having been moved to the hotel in May.

He said residents have been left ‘in the dark’, adding: ‘We don’t know if one day a bus comes and says we’re going out from here.

‘If this happens – if we are taken out of this place – then they will surely take us from every place we go to. It’s going to be the same.’

There are currently 138 male asylum seekers living at the site, and they would all have needed to be evicted if the ruling hadn’t been overturned.

Across the country, there are around 32,000 asylum seekers housed in around 210 hotels.

Where will asylum seekers staying in the Bell Hotel be moved?

The Labour government promised during the last general election that it would end the use of hotels to house asylum seekers – but the temporary injunction in Epping has come much sooner than expected.

Home Office lawyers said Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has a duty to stop asylum seekers being made destitute, which trumps the council’s powers to close the hotel.

It is not known where the asylum seekers could have been moved to if the injunction hadn’t been overturned.

But a government minister has warned migrants could be left ‘living destitute in the streets’.

Health minister Stephen Kinnock told Sky News: ‘It’s not a question of if we close the hotels, it’s a question of when and how we close the hotels, and what we don’t want to have is a disorderly discharge from every hotel in the country, which would actually have far worse consequences than what we currently have, in terms of the impact that would have on asylum seekers potentially living destitute in the streets.

‘And I don’t think any one of the communities that are campaigning on these hotels issue want to see that.

‘So what we are doing is looking to appeal this injunction simply because we’re taking a pragmatic approach to how we want to manage the process, not because we believe that the hotel … per se should stay open.

‘We’ve got a whole range of options – disused warehouses, disused office blocks, disused military barracks.

‘We are looking at every option that we have to manage the discharge, and it’s really important that we do that and put those plans in place, but of course, it’s going to be much more effective if we’re able to do that in a way where we’re controlling the discharge from these hotels.’

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