A temporary injunction that was set to block asylum seekers from being housed at an Essex hotel has been overturned at the Court of Appeal.
Somani Hotels, which owns the Bell Hotel in Epping, and the Home Office challenged a High Court ruling that would have stopped 138 asylum seekers from being housed there beyond September 12.
In a ruling last week, Mr Justice Eyre granted Epping Forest District Council (EFDC) an interim injunction after the authority claimed that Somani Hotels had breached planning rules by using the Bell as accommodation for asylum seekers.
After a hearing on Thursday, three Court of Appeal judges ruled in favour of Somani Hotels and the Home Office on Friday, stating that Mr Justice Eyreâs ruling was âseriously flawed in principleâ.
The ruling will come as a relief to the Home Office, which had been braced for further legal challenges from other councils over the use of hotels in their areas.
Reading a summary of the ruling overturning the injunction, Lord Justice Bean, sitting with Lady Justice Nicola Davies and Lord Justice Cobb, said: âWe conclude that the judge made a number of errors in principle, which undermine this decision.â
He continued: âThe judgeâs approach ignores the obvious consequence that the closure of one site means capacity needs to be identified elsewhere in the system.â
He added that such an injunction âmay incentiviseâ other councils to take similar steps as EFDC.
He said: âThe potential cumulative impact of such ad-hoc applications was a material consideration⌠that was not considered by the judge.â
The judge also said that the appeals were ânot concerned with the merits of government policy in relation to the provision of accommodation for asylum seekers in hotels or otherwiseâ.
The full written judgment in the case, which Lord Justice Bean said runs to over 120 paragraphs, will be provided later.
The Home Office had also appealed against Mr Justice Eyreâs decision last week not to let it intervene in the case, with this challenge also allowed by the Court of Appeal.
The Bell became the focal point of several protests and counter-protests in recent weeks after an asylum seeker housed there was charged with sexually assaulting a teenage girl last month.
Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu has denied the offence and has been on trial this week.
Edward Brown KC, for the Home Office, said that the interim injunction âruns the risk of acting as an impetus for further protests, some of which may be disorderly, around other asylum accommodationâ.
Health minister Stephen Kinnock also warned earlier on Friday that asylum seekers could be âliving destitute in the streetsâ if there was a âdisorderly dischargeâ from hotels.
Piers Riley-Smith, for Somani Hotels, said in written submissions on Thursday that Mr Justice Eyre âoverlookedâ the âhardshipâ that would be caused to asylum seekers if they were required to move.
He continued that the âextremely high-profile nature of the issueâ created a ârisk of a precedent being setâ.
The hotel first housed asylum seekers from May 2020 to March 2021.
It accommodated single adult males from October 2022 to April 2024, and has done so again since April this year.
The council never previously took enforcement action, with its barristers telling the Court of Appeal that its previous use as asylum seeker accommodation had been âunproblematicâ.
Opposing the appeal bids, barrister Philip Coppel KC stated in written submissions that the case âsets no precedentâ and there was âno compelling reasonâ for the injunction to be overturned.
He continued: âThere was no error of law in the judgeâs approach, and his decision, based on a carefully calibrated assessment of the relevant factors, was open to him.
âNotwithstanding the public controversy surrounding the judgeâs decision, it was based on the conventional application of well-settled and agreed principles of law.â
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage previously hailed the High Court decision as a âvictoryâ and said he hoped it âprovides inspiration to others across the countryâ.
He also indicated that the 12 councils where Reform UK was the largest party would consider legal challenges.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch suggested that the migrants housed at the hotel âneed to be moved out of the area immediatelyâ, while her shadow home secretary Chris Philp said that âresidents should never have had to fight their own government just to feel safe in their own townâ.
The latest Home Office data, published last week as part of the usual quarterly immigration statistics, shows there were 32,059 asylum seekers in UK hotels by the end of June.
This was up from 29,585 at the same point a year earlier, when the Conservatives were still in power, but down slightly on the 32,345 figure at the end of March.
