There has been a major update in the court case lodged to stop asylum seekers from being lodged in the Bell Hotel in Epping.
Protests broke out outside the Bell Hotel in Epping in recent weeks (Image: Getty )
The owners of a hotel at the centre of a legal storm over the housing of migrants in hotels will have an appeal heard on Thursday. Somani Hotels Limited, which owns the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, will have its bid to appeal against a ruling that it cannot house asylum seekers at the site heard by the Court of Appeal this week, according to court listings. The legal bid follows an announcement by the Home Office that it too planned to challenge the High Court ruling.
The hotel has become a lightning rod for the illegal immigration debate after the High Court backed the local council which asked for the premises to no longer house migrants. News of the appeal by the owners of the hotel comes as Reform UK leader Nigel Farage launched his party’s new Deportations Policy at an aircraft hanger at Kidlington Airport, near Oxford.
The Reform UK leader said: “I suppose the growing anger in the country in the course of the last few weeks is a cultural one, in the sense that many of these young men come from countries in which women aren’t even second class citizens. And frankly the public have now just had enough. What began as a protest of mothers and concerned citizens outside the Bell Hotel in Epping has now spread right across the country.
Protesters gathered outside the hotel in Epping, Essex (Image: Getty )
“All of it really poses one big fundamental question. Whose side are you on? Are you on the side of women and children being safe on our streets? Or are you on the side of outdated international treaties backed up by a series of dubious courts.”
Somani Hotels Limited, which owns the Bell Hotel in Epping, is seeking to appeal against a High Court ruling ordering it to stop accommodating asylum seekers at the site by September 12.
It followed Epping Forest District Council asking a judge to grant a temporary injunction, claiming that the company had breached planning rules.
Police have surrounded the hotel in recent weeks (Image: PA )
Mr Justice Eyre granted the injunction on August 19, stating that while the council had not “definitively established” that Somani Hotels had breached planning rules, “the strength of the claimant’s case is such that it weighs in favour” of granting the injunction.
Court listings show that Somani Hotels will have its bid to appeal against the ruling heard on Thursday at the Court of Appeal.
The listing also states that the Home Office is seeking to appeal against the ruling at the same hearing, as well as challenge Mr Justice Eyre’s decision not to allow the department to intervene in the case.
The Bell Hotel has been the focal point of several protests and counter-protests in recent weeks, after a resident was charged with sexually assaulting a teenage girl.
