Local authorities in the town of Epping won a lawsuit to prevent a hotel from housing asylum seekers.
The court ruling was a significant victory for the councils and groups opposing the use of hotel buildings to accommodate asylum seeking people.
Residents living near the hotels were unhappy and frustrated over community safety concerns. Meanwhile, far-right groups are leveraging the issue to push an anti-immigration agenda.
The “legal precedent” set by the tribunal encouraged other councils to stage protests and take actions against the previous legal obligations that allowed hotels to house asylum seekers without planning permission.
As a result, protests have begun to emerge across the UK, creating a tense situation for the police, who were expecting clashes between different groups of protesters.
The Epping Forest District Council argued that providing housing to asylum seekers is a “breach of planning and permission.”
Councillor Chris Whitbread highlighted the social consequences and said, “We are doing this on behalf of our community.”
The government, a participant in the proceedings, expressed its disapproval and argued that the court ruling would “aggravate the pressures on the asylum estate.”
The UK administration has a mandate to provide accommodation to people seeking asylum, but there is a substantial lack of available housing. Therefore, hotels are a temporary fix, even though the situation has become a political issue.
The government is making efforts to stop using hotels but wants to do it in an “orderly way”. An appeal has been lodged in the Epping Court against the ruling, which may create chaos and leave the government with no place to house thousands of people.
Both the government and opposition parties agree on the need to end the use of hotels, but they disagree on the larger problem: how to find a permanent place to live for asylum seekers.
According to Home Office statistics for the year ending June 2025, a total of 111,084 people claimed asylum in the UK.