Council chiefs have launched a new offensive in the battle to close a controversial migrant hotel in Essex.
Epping Forest District Council is seeking to take its case to the Supreme Court as the authority fights to shutdown The Bell Hotel.
The facility, home to dozens of illegal migrants, has been at the centre of a political maelstrom in recent weeks.
Thousands of people have protested at the site, demanding the foreign guests are booted out, while counter-protesters have accused anti-migrant activists of racism.
Violent demonstrations ignited after a migrant at the hotel was accused of sexually assaulting two young girls in Epping just days after arriving in Britain illegally.
The disorder has led to police officers being drafted in from across the UK in a bid to contain the mayhem – which has since spread to other parts of the country amid growing calls for asylum hotels to be outlawed.
Last month, Epping council secured a crucial victory in its fight to close the Bell, after being granted a temporary injunction by the High Court which would have forced 138 asylum seekers to leave by September 12.
But on Friday, campaigners were dealt a major blow after the Court of Appeal overturned the decision, ruling instead in favour of the Home Office.
Now Epping council is preparing to take its fight to the UK’s highest court in a last-ditch bid to appeal the decision, with the authority confirming the move last night.
A council spokesman said: ‘Indicating our intention to appeal does not commit us to further action but facilitates the later process, should we decide to do so.
‘Refusal of the Court of Appeal to allow our request would not close our opportunity. The council would still have the right to apply directly to the Supreme Court.’
During its earlier plea at the High Court, the council argued site owner Somani Hotels had breached planning rules by not notifying Epping of its plans for the Bell.
However, the hotel chain and the Home Office – which moved migrants to the property – took the case to the Court of Appeal.
The judge there, Lord Justice Bean, overturned the lower court’s decision in favour of Epping, saying the temporary injunction ruling was ‘seriously flawed in principle’.
News of the dramatic u-turn sparked outrage, with protests spreading to cities across the UK, sparking accusations the government was ‘taking the side of migrants over Britons’.
On Sunday, Labour appeared to double-down on the move as a top minister backed the decision to keep the Bell open, warning that shutting it could cause ‘disruption’.
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson insisted the Home Office was right to argue the rights of asylum seekers trumped those of local residents in the Essex town.
She said the axing of the Bell Hotel would have triggered ‘lots of disruption’ and would have left people ‘on the streets’.
She told Sky News’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips programme: ‘I completely understand why many people in places like Epping, where hotels have opened up, feel incredibly frustrated about that.
‘They have a right to demonstrate lawfully and peacefully. But where it crosses a line that isn’t consistent with our long-standing traditions in this country of respect for the rule of law, respect for the police and our responsibility to make sure that we have safe communities for everybody living there.’
Following her comments, Nigel Farage warned Labour now was on the cusp of a catastrophic wipeout in the polls over the fiasco, which he said would see support for his Reform UK party skyrocket.
Mr Farage told the Mail: ‘The question is ‘whose side are you on’. Clearly the government in the case of Epping has said the illegal immigrants. Reform says the mothers of Epping. This will drive many more voters towards us.’
Hitting back, Ms Phillipson said she could ‘understand’ people’s ‘frustration’ over the migrant hotels.
‘But Nigel Farage and Reform, they don’t actually want to sort this problem – interests are served by whipping up anger rather than fixing it,’ she added.
The migrant hotel scheme is currently set to cost the UK taxpayer billions of pounds to fund.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has vowed to overhaul the asylum system in a bid to cut down the number of migrants staying in hotels while they wait to find out whether or not they will be deported.
Currently, there are about 32,000 asylum seekers still housed in hotels nationally.
Ms Cooper said that, while initial decisions on asylum applications had been sped up, there had been ‘unacceptable delays’ when people who were turned down decided to appeal.
At the moment, it takes on average just over a year for an appeal to be heard – with 51,000 cases still awaiting a decision.
During this time, failed asylum seekers are accommodated at the taxpayer’s expense.
A report by government spending watchdog the National Audit Office earlier this year warned the cost of asylum hotel contracts had ballooned from a predicted £4.5billion to £15.3billion over ten years.
During 2024/2025, Britain spent about £108million a month on housing migrants in hotels.
The Home Office said: ‘At its peak, less than two years ago, there were 400 asylum hotels in use at a cost of almost £9million a day.
‘We have taken urgent action over the past year to fix that system, doubling the rate of asylum decision-making, and reducing the amount of money spent on asylum hotels by almost a billion pounds.’
