Epping Forest District Council secured an interim injunction this week that prevents the owners of the Bell Hotel from using the property to accommodate asylum seekers.
The judgment turned on some rather technical planning matters concerning permitted uses of land, and whether an 'asylum hotel' amounted to a materially different use of land than a regular hotel.
However, the general principles set down are likely to have much broader applications.
Considerations for local authorities following Bell Hotel injunction
The court carefully weighed the public interest in enforcing planning control and the loss of amenity to local residents on the one hand, with the public interest in the accommodation of destitute asylum seekers on the other.
The court ultimately concluded that the public interest in controlling the use of asylum hotels was the more important factor in that balance.
While the bringing of copycat claims may at first appear attractive, councils need to take care to consider unintended consequences.
The protests at the Bell Hotel were clearly influential in the court's decision. Local authorities will be mindful of the risk of stoking civil unrest, even inadvertently, by encouraging residents to take direct action against hotels used (or suspected of being used) to house asylum seekers.
Local authorities themselves rely heavily on block-booking hotels, and bed and breakfast accommodation, to temporarily house those in need.
This includes people without recourse to public funds who face destitution, those who are homeless, and those threatened with homelessness.
Proactive steps for local and central government
Local authorities may wish to review their own use of hotels to plug gaps in their supply of social housing and temporary accommodation.
They should consider how they would meet their duties to vulnerable service users currently accommodated this way before any litigation to close Home Office hotels in their areas.
It's also important to acknowledge the asylum challenges we face won't be solved by simply closing asylum hotels.
The people displaced from those hotels will need to be housed somewhere while their applications are processed.
Solving this problem requires closer co-operation between all branches of government, and across the whole of the UK.
More litigation is unlikely to bring about a sustainable long-term solution to the challenges we face.
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