Immigration: making history

By Richard North - August 20, 2025

There can be no doubt as to the issue of the moment, with the victory of Epping Forest District Council in successfully obtaining an interim injunction, ordering the closure of the Bell Hotel in Epping as a migrant hotel by 12 September.

The success has been widely publicised in both national and local media – print and broadcast – with the [online] Telegraph’s headline typical of the many, declaring: “Migrants must leave Epping hotel, High Court rules”, with the sub-head: “Decision comes after Home Office warning that injunction could put asylum hotel scheme at risk”.

That warning of the effect of the injunction is taken up by the overnight edition of The Times which reports: “Asylum housing scheme in chaos after council fights back”, the sub-head in this case declaring: “Ministers expect other local authorities will move to shut down migrant hotels after Epping Forest council won a High Court injunction on planning grounds”.

For the moment, the text of the judgement, delivered in the High Court by Mr Justice Eyre, does not seem to be available on-line (the judgement has now been released. ed) and the nearest thing I can find to an official statement is the brief note on the Epping Forest website which notes that the injunction also contains a declaration that the use of the Bell Hotel for asylum seekers is not a permitted use of the hotel for planning purposes.

This is at the heart of the issue, explained over two years ago (February 2023) in a House of Commons Library briefing note which addresses the question: “Is planning permission required to house asylum seekers in hotels?”.

Whether or not planning permission for migrant hotels is needed depends essentially on the interpretation of the applicable legislation, The Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987, which classifies hotels and hostels under Part C.

Generally, under the C1 category, no distinction is made between a hotel and a hostel, except that, when there is provided “a significant element of care and support”, the accommodation falls within Class C2. Since “care and support” is a defining characteristic of a migrant hotel – more accurately a hostel – the presumption is that the use falls within the C.2 classification. Change of use from one class to the other can require planning permission and it is within this provision that the Bell Hotel has fallen.

However, as the HoC Library points out, planning permission isn’t necessarily required. There must, in legal terms, be a “material change of use”, taken to mean a significant alteration in how a building or land is used, potentially impacting the local area’s character or amenities. Key factors include the intensity of the new use, its impact on traffic, noise, and visual aspects.

That said, while Epping is currently in the news, this is not the first time planning law has been tried out in an attempt to prevent hotels being used to accommodate migrants. Most attempts have been unsuccessful.

In November 2022, for instance, the High Court declined to continue injunctions sought by Ipswich Borough Council and East Riding of Yorkshire Council.

In these cases, the judge found there were arguments pointing towards and against hostel use, concluding: “the distinction between a hotel and hostel … is [a] fine [one]”. Whether a change of use from hotel to hostel is material, he added, depends on the planning consequences.

In these cases, the judge asserted, the consequences were “very limited”: the alleged change of use would not alter the buildings, cause environmental damage, or impact the character of the area.

The High Court has also declined to extend interim injunctions by Fenland District Council and Stoke-on-Trent City Council. It has declined North Northamptonshire Council’s application for an injunction.

On the other hand, in January 2023, the High Court decided to continue an injunction preventing the use of a seafront hotel in Great Yarmouth to house asylum seekers (Rupert Lowe’s territory).

Great Yarmouth’s local plan includes a policy to protect the seafront because of its importance to the town’s tourism economy. The local plan defines uses that are not permitted on the seafront, including hostels.

Here, the judge also considered the impact of an injunction on asylum seekers and whether the planning authority had used other enforcement powers prior to seeking an injunction. In fact, Great Yarmouth had issued an enforcement notice in 2006 prohibiting the use of the building as a hostel and the judge noted this was still in force but had not deterred the provider. This supported the use of more serious powers, in this case an injunction.

This question of alternative enforcement powers also came up in the Epping case, where the hotel owner, Somani Hotels Limited, argued that any breach of planning law could be dealt with by conventional enforcement action. The council, on the other hand, argued that an urgent order was needed, cited disruption caused by the protests and concerns for the safety of the asylum seekers themselves. Evidently, the judge agreed.

At the eleventh hour, just before the ruling was handed down, The Home Office made an application to intervene, joining in the action. This, according to the Telegraph got short shrift from the judge, who dismissed the application saying that the consequences of the [Home Secretary] joining would be the loss of yet further court time. “The impact of that”, he said, “is significant”.

A barrister for the home secretary had argued that a ruling in the council’s favour would have a substantial impact on the home secretary’s statutory duty to house asylum seekers while their cases are considered, and it is this aspect which is explored by The Times.

In reporting that the government’s asylum accommodation scheme has been “thrown into doubt”, the paper says that ministers are now braced for a wave of applications by local authorities also seeking to close migrant hotels in their areas.

However, as councillor Chris Whitbread, the leader of Epping Forest District Council says: “This is not the end of the matter”. The council has only obtained an interim stay and must return to the court and seek a permanent injunction. Whitbread does not say so, but it is the case that other councils have reached the interim stage but have failed in their quests for permanency.

What appears to have made the difference so far, though, is the extent of the public protests outside the hotel. In planning terms, this goes towards the “material change of use” consideration, where the new use is quite clearly impacting the local area’s character and amenities, with effects in terms of traffic, noise, and visual aspects.

On this basis, should public demonstrations – with all that they entail – become a permanent (or even common) feature of the change of use from hotel to migrant hostel, this could become a material consideration in determining whether planning permission was necessary, and provide solid grounds for rejection.

Tentatively, therefore, one can say that this is an issue where, demonstrably, public protest works. The home secretary might complain that rejection would interfere with her statutory duties, but that should not be any concern of the courts. If the Rule of Law is to mean anything, then planning law must apply equally to all parties, including the home secretary. She cannot exempt herself from the law.

There does remain, though, the question of where the migrants go if they are chucked out of the hotels, where success could turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory, with the outcome even less satisfactory than current provisions.

This is intimated by the comments of Enver Solomon, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, who says the ruling should signal the end of the use of hotels to house asylum seekers.

“Everyone agrees that hotels are the wrong answer – they cost the taxpayer billions, trap people in limbo and are flashpoints in communities”, he avers. “Instead of using costly hotels, the Government should partner with local councils to provide safe, cost-effective accommodation within communities”.

This begets another step in the Home Office’s dispersal programme where, instead of being accommodated in highly visible hotels, the migrants are farmed out to local authorities and tucked away in HMOs, repurposed office buildings and even converted shops – small packages of migrants deeply embedded in vulnerable communities.

This provision, though, is hardly likely to be any more popular than the hotels policy and, when it comes to demonstrations, these too will be dispersed, potentially more difficult to police, as resources are more thinly spread.

The government could, of course, resolve this matter by stopping the boats and deporting the existing illegal immigrants, but it shows no signs of doing either. More protests, though, and still more closures, will squeeze the government between a rock and hard place, perhaps forcing the issue.

With that, although only a tiny baby step in the larger scheme of things, yesterday Epping made history.