Migrants are set to be moved out of a controversial asylum hotel after a council was granted a injunction to shut it down.
Council leaders won the first stage of their battle to close the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, on planning permission grounds after it became an epicentre of anti-immigration protests, including some which turned violent.
The demonstrations were sparked when a migrant living at the hotel was charged with a series of sexual offences, including some against a 14-year-old girl.
Epping Forest District Council was today granted a temporary injunction by the High Court in London – with the decision welcomed by jubilant locals.
It came after the Home Office unsuccessfully attempted to block the legal challenge, claiming its closure would cause ‘acute difficulties’ and breach asylum seekers’ ‘fundamental human rights’.
The injunction means the hotel’s owner, Somani Hotels Limited, must stop housing asylum seekers at the site by September 12.
Ministers will now fear other areas of the country will attempt similar tactics to get unpopular migrant hotels shuttered.
Mother Sarah White, 40, one of the protest organisers, said the news was ‘amazing’.
She said: ‘This is great news – it is fantastic. This is not just for Epping but the rest of the country. Hopefully this is the sign of things to come.
‘I really do hope they do not put these people in houses of multiple occupancy within our community now.
‘That would be a kick in the face and we would fight it.
‘But today’s news is really positive. Families and women will be able to sleep easier at night knowing they will not be there.
‘It’s been a disgrace we have had to fight like this.’
Sarah said they would be talking to other towns where migrant hotels are.
She added: ‘We will start protesting with towns up and down the country. We are standing shoulder to shoulder with them as well.
‘We want to show this is bigger than Epping, it is impacting the whole country.’
Reform leader Nigel Farage added that he hoped Epping council’s victory ‘provides inspiration to others across the country’.
Maureen Chapman, 73, has lived in Epping for 50 years and said she felt ‘under threat’ by the hotel being there.
Today she said: ‘This has restored my faith in humanity. It has restored my faith in common sense. Thank God, somebody has actually listened to the people.
‘Locals have finally been heard and it feels like it has taken a very long time for that to happen.
‘I hope councils up and down the country hear this message loud and clear. These hotels are not wanted and if local people rally around as a community, their voices can be heard.’
Admin assistant Sarah Corner, 44, added: ‘I am so pleased. Today is a huge day for the people of Epping. It is absolutely amazing.
‘I only hope people now don’t go through the same hell as we did.
‘I was so worried every night. I only live half a mile away from the hotel.
‘When there was the news of the alleged sexual assaults, it was horrific. I felt sick.
‘We can all now hopefully get on with our lives.’
Edward Brown KC, for the Home Office, warned the High Court the move ‘runs the risk of acting as an impetus for further violent protests’.
It would also ‘substantially interfere’ with the Home Office’s legal duty to avoiding a breach of the asylum seekers’ human rights, he said.
The barrister added: ‘The balance of convenience can never favour a course of conduct that creates a real risk of interfering with fundamental human rights.
‘If the injunction is granted by the court, it will substantially impact on the Home Secretary’s statutory duties.
‘The local authority should in fact have given some consideration to the wider public interest in this application.’
He added that the injunction bid ’causes particular acute difficulties at the present date’.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said it was ‘good news and a victory for the mums and dads I spoke to in Epping who just want their children to be safe’.
She added: ‘Putting a hotel full of young male illegal immigrants in the middle of a community like Epping was always going to lead to issues.
‘They need to be moved out of the area immediately.
‘But Epping is just one of many towns struggling with these asylum hotels.
‘Labour have no solution, they’re not smashing any gangs and small boat arrivals are at record highs.
‘I do have a plan – bring back a proper deterrent and remove all illegal arrivals immediately, so towns like Epping never have to deal with this again.’
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: ‘Residents should never have had to fight their own Government just to feel safe in their own town.’
He accused Labour of deciding to ‘tear up the deterrents the Conservatives put in place’, such as the Rwanda asylum scheme.
Reform’s Mr Farage said: ‘This is a victory for the parents and concerned residents of Epping.
‘They do not want their young women being assaulted on the streets.
‘This community stood up bravely, despite being slandered as far right, and have won.
‘They represent the vast majority of decent people in this country. Young, undocumented males who break into the UK illegally should not be free to walk the streets anywhere.
‘They must be detained and deported.
‘I hope that Epping provides inspiration to others across the country.’
Outside the Royal Courts of Justice, Epping council leader Chris Whitbread said: ‘This is a decision that’s important to Epping Forest, but also important to have councils up and down the country, and it shows that the Government cannot ignore planning rules, just like no-one else can ignore planning rules.’
He added: ‘This is only the start of a process and subject to appeal, we recognise that, but all things being equal, the Bell Hotel will be empty by September 12, and that’s really important for the students, residents, businesses of Epping Forest.’
Addressing local residents, he went on: ‘If they decide to go outside the Bell Hotel, don’t protest, don’t over-celebrate. This is the beginning. It is not the end.’
The Home Office had not been represented at a previous hearing in the case on Friday.
But today the department asked to be allowed to intervene Mr Justice Eyre was due to hand down his ruling on whether the injunction should be granted.
Philip Coppel KC, for Epping Forest District Council, said the Home Office’s request was ‘a thoroughly unprincipled application made in a thoroughly unprincipled way’.
He added that the department knew of the injunction bid last week but ‘sat on their hands’.
It comes after a series of protests in recent weeks outside the hotel.
A resident at the hotel, Hadush Kebatu, 41, from Ethiopia, was charged with sexual assault, harassment and inciting a girl to engage in sexual activity.
The incidents allegedly happened within two days, just over a week after the 41-year-old arrived in the UK by boat.
Raphael Pigott, defending, told a hearing at Colchester magistrates’ court on July 17: ‘I believe he is here as a refugee or asylum seeker, and that he arrived informally on a boat.’
It is alleged Mr Kebatu tried to kiss a schoolgirl as she ate pizza near a busy high street, and the next day attempted to kiss an adult near a fish and chip shop in the town centre, telling her she was ‘pretty’ while putting his hand on her leg.
He then encountered the girl again and tried to kiss her, a court was told.
Mr Kebatu has denied the offences and is in custody.
A second man who resides at the hotel, Syrian national Mohammed Sharwarq, has separately been charged with seven offences.
A series of protests have taken place outside the hotel since the alleged incidents.
There was violence outside the premises last month after ‘anti-immigration’ campaigners clashed with ‘anti-racism’ demonstrators.
Activists brawled in the streets while police battled to contain the chaos.
Twenty-eight people have since been arrested in relation to disorder, and 16 of them have been charged.
Police chiefs have already described the unrest at The Bell as a ‘signal flare’ for another summer of disorder.
At a hearing on Friday the council told the High Court the housing of asylum seekers at the property was becoming a ‘very serious problem’ which ‘could not be much worse’.
Barristers for the council claimed Somani Hotels breached planning rules as the site is not being used for its intended purpose as a hotel, stating there was an ‘overwhelming case for an injunction’.
Somani Hotels defended the claim with its barristers telling the court in London that a ‘draconian’ injunction would cause asylum seekers ‘hardship’.
They added that ‘political views’ were not grounds for an injunction to be made.
They also said that contracts to house asylum seekers were a ‘financial lifeline’ for the hotel, which was only one per cent full in August 2022, when it was open to paying customers.
Opening Friday’s hearing Philip Coppel KC, for the council, said: ‘Epping Forest District Council comes to this court seeking an injunction because it has a very serious problem.
‘It is a problem that is getting out of hand; it is a problem that is causing a great anxiety to those living in the district.
‘There has been what can be described as an increase in community tension, the catalyst of which has been the use of the Bell Hotel to place asylum seekers.
‘The problem has arisen because of a breach of planning control by the defendant.’
He continued that the site ‘is no more a hotel than a borstal to a young offender’ for asylum seekers and that Somani Hotels had not had ‘the courage of conviction to seek a certificate of lawful use’, which would have ‘resolved the matter in its favour’.
Mr Coppel also referenced the alleged sexual assault of the teenage girl, and said several schools were in the nearby area.
He said: ‘Having this sort of thing go on in such a concentration of schools with no measures in place to stop a repetition is not acceptable.
‘It really could not be much worse than this.’
Another factor in favour of granting an injunction would be removing a ‘catalyst for violent protests in public places’.
The barrister added: ‘Allowing the status quo to continue is wholly unacceptable, providing a feeding ground for unrest.’
Piers Riley-Smith, representing Somani Hotels, said the alleged planning breach was ‘not flagrant’, and that it was ‘entirely wrong’ for the council to ‘suggest the use has been hidden from them’.
The barrister told the court that the hotel previously housed asylum seekers from 2020 to 2021, and from 2022 to 2024, and that the council ‘never instigated any formal enforcement proceedings against this use’.
He said company applied for planning permission for a ‘temporary change of use’ in February 2023, but this was later withdrawn as it had not been determined by April 2024.
Asylum seekers then began being placed in the Bell Hotel again in April 2025, with Mr Riley-Smith stating that a planning application was not made ‘having taken advice from the Home Office’.
Addressing the public protests at Epping, the barrister said: ‘The court should bear in mind – as recognised by the claimant – that these have spread far beyond locals who might have a genuine concern about their area to a wider group with more strategic national and ideological aims, but that does not necessarily mean the concerns are well-founded.
‘Fears as to an increase of crime associated with asylum seekers or a danger to schools are common, but that does not make them well-founded.
‘It also sets a dangerous precedent that protests justify planning injunctions.’
Mr Justice Eyre refused to give Somani Hotels the green light to challenge his ruling, but the company could still ask the Court of Appeal for the go-ahead to appeal.
In his judgment, he said that while the council had not ‘definitively established’ Somani Hotels had breached planning rules, ‘the strength of the claimant’s case is such that it weighs in favour’ of granting the injunction.
He continued that the ‘risk of injustice is greater’ if a temporary injunction were not granted.
A further hearing on whether the injunction should be made permanent is expected to be held at a later date, and is expected to last two days.
