A Reform-run council is launching legal action to close three migrant hotels, the Daily Mail can reveal.
West Northamptonshire Council said that by accommodating asylum seekers, the three sites may have breached planning rules.
It is issuing Planning Contravention Notices to the owners of the Ibis in Crick, the Holiday Inn in Flore and MK Hotel in Deanshanger – all in Northamptonshire.
The council will then decide whether enforcement action is required, with the hotel owners given 21 days to respond.
Reform believes its approach is more likely to stop the sites being used as migrant hotels than Epping Forest District Council’s effort.
Last week, judges at the Court of Appeal overturned an injunction ordering asylum seekers to leave The Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex.
Epping Forest District Council (EFDC) had obtained the temporary court order to stop 138 asylum seekers being housed at the Bell, which was at the centre of anti-immigration protests.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage told the Daily Mail that his party was ‘doing the hard yards’ to ensure victory in the courts.
‘We said after May 1st that we would use every lever at our disposal to close asylum hotels in areas we now run,’ Mr Farage said.
‘While Labour are fighting in the courts to keep asylum hotels open, Reform is doing the hard yards to ensure we are victorious in the courts.’
West Northamptonshire Council leader Mark Arnull added: ‘By accommodating asylum seekers, we believe these hotels may have a case to answer for breaching planning control, and these notices are the first formal step in allowing us to investigate further.
‘The recent Epping Court of Appeal hearing highlighted the importance of ensuring the full planning enforcement process is followed if councils are looking to take action against the use of hotels in their area as asylum accommodation and that’s what we’re doing in West Northants.
‘With the Home Office’s use of these hotels in our area placing an unsustainable strain on our local services and with residents continuing to raise concerns, we will look at using whatever powers we have to address these issues.’
Yesterday, the Court of Appeal handed down its full written judgment in the Bell Hotel case.
It said Epping residents’ fear of crime is ‘outweighed’ by the ‘undesirability of incentivising protests, by the desirability in the interests of justice of preserving the status quo for the relatively brief period leading up to the forthcoming trial’, as well as public interest factors.
The hotel became the focal point of several demonstrations and counter-protests after an asylum seeker housed there was charged with sexually assaulting a teenage girl last month. He has denied the charges.
The full judgment by Lord Justice Bean, sitting with Lady Justice Nicola Davies and Lord Justice Cobb, was highly critical of the High Court’s decision to grant a temporary injunction.
They said Mr Justice Eyre’s assessment of ‘the balance of convenience’ before issuing the injunction was ‘seriously flawed in principle’.
Epping Forest District Council, which applied for the injunction, is considering taking the case to the Supreme Court.
Protests continued in Epping over the weekend and police arrested three people.
About 200 demonstrators gathered outside the council building on Sunday, where a woman climbed the steps and unfurled a Union flag.
