Asylum seekers can continue living in an Essex hotel after a council lost a landmark legal battle to deport them at the High Court.
Epping Forest District Council attempted to block migrant accommodation at The Bell hotel in Epping, arguing its owner had breached planning rules.
Judge Mold dismissed the claim on Tuesday, ruling that an injunction was “not an appropriate means of enforcing planning control”.
In the summer there was a wave of protests outside the hotel, following the arrest of an asylum seeker who lived there and was later jailed for sexual offences.
The judge said he accepted that “the criminal behavior of a small number of individual asylum seekers” housed at the hotel had “increased fear of crime” among locals.
But he rejected the idea that the hotel’s owner, Somani Hotels, had committed a “flagrant or persistent abuse of planning control.”
It was also said there was a “continuing need” to house asylum seekers with pending asylum claims, “so that the Home Secretary can fulfill his legal duties”.
