Asylum seekers to continue living at Epping hotel after council appeal rejected

The hotel was the site of large-scale protests last summer, seeing residents from Epping and beyond gather in huge numbers to voice concerns against the use of the asylum hotel.

However, in a judgment this morning, two Court of Appeal judges said the appeal could not go ahead.

Lady Justice Andrews and Lord Justice Holgate said the High Court judge did not “duck the issue” related to planning law and the council's appeal was “unarguable”.

“There is no arguable basis for criticising the judge’s reasons for refusing to exercise his discretion to grant a declaration, whether as a matter of general approach or in the circumstances of this case”, they declared.

“The need to provide accommodation for persons present in this country, whether as asylum seekers or otherwise, is plainly capable of being a relevant planning consideration”.

Somani Hotels and the Home Office had opposed the appeal bid, with lawyers for the department telling a hearing in March the council was doing an “unjustified disservice to the judge’s comprehensive analysis of the law”.

Philip Coppel KC, for Epping Council, argued at the hearing that hotels had been used to house asylum seekers “without any planning consideration” and “it is a matter of public and planning concern that, of course, goes wider than just the Bell Hotel episode”.

The site was used to house asylum seekers from May 2020 to March 2021, and accommodated single adult males from October 2022 to April 2024, with the council taking no enforcement action.

It was then used for a third time, and became the focal point of several protests and counter-protests last summer after an asylum seeker housed there was charged with sexually assaulting a teenage girl in July.

Hadush Kebatu, an Ethiopian asylum seeker and convicted sex offender who had been living at The Bell Hotel, was mistakenly released from HMP Chelmsford on October 24 2025.

He had been sentenced to 12 months in prison in September last year for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman.

Following a 48-hour manhunt, Kebatu was rearrested in Finsbury Park, north London, on the morning of Sunday, October 26, and was subsequently deported to Ethiopia two days later.

The council successfully sought a temporary injunction blocking the use of the site last August, claiming the use of the site was a breach of planning rules.

After the Conservative-led authority had spent £566,000 fighting the case, the decision was then overturned by the Court of Appeal, which found the decision to be “seriously flawed in principle”.

Mr Justice Mould then dismissed the council’s bid for a permanent injunction, finding the breach of planning rules was “far from being flagrant” and that it was “not a case in which it is just and convenient for this court to grant an injunction”.

The decision comes after Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood revealed plans to reduce the burden of asylum seekers on the taxpayer, seeking to close asylum hotels nationwide, and incentivise failed asylum applicants to leave the country with payments up to £40,000.

More than 100,000 people applied for asylum in the UK in 2025, with 41 per cent arriving via small boats.

The remainder include those who arrived by other illegal means, or who came to the UK legally and applied for asylum while holding a valid visa.

The Government must house an asylum seeker if they cannot support themselves while their claim is being considered, with 103,426 people in asylum accommodation as of December 2025.

Around 30 per cent of those people were in hotels – used when there is not enough shared housing available, such as HMOs or former military sites.

The number of those seeking asylum has grown exponentially in recent years due to a backlog built up over the Covid period.

More people are in hotels across the south of England than elsewhere in the UK.

However, Sir Keir Starmer has pledged to stop the use of hotels by 2029.