Over the last quarter century, the UK asylum system has seen huge changes, and ripples of unintended consequences. In Epping Forest District Council v Somani Hotels Limited [2025] EWHC 2183 (KB) [2025] WLR(D) 445, Eyre J had to confront some of these in his decision of 19 August 2025 to grant an interim injunction on planning law grounds to prevent a hotel from accommodating asylum seekers under sub-contract with a Home Office contractor.

The hotel in question is in South East England, just outside Greater London. It has been used for asylum seeker accommodation for three substantial periods since 2020. The local authority told the owner on each occasion that it considered that this was a material change from its existing permitted use as a hotel, boarding or guest house. The owner said that it disagreed but in February 2023, during the second period of use, applied for planning permission while reserving its position that this was legally unnecessary. Over a year later, the authority had not reached a decision on the application and, with the relevant contract due to expire, the owner withdrew the application in March 2025. The hotel then lay empty for a year, but in April 2025 a new contract was agreed and a group of asylum seekers moved in. On this occasion, the owner initially told the local authority that it would reapply, but in June indicated that it had changed its mind upon being advised by the Home Office that this was unnecessary. In July, an asylum seeker staying at the hotel was arrested on charges of sexual assault and harassment against local residents. Initially peaceful protests outside the hotel by locals “increased in scale and came to involve persons who had travelled to Epping from elsewhere either to express opposition to the use of the Bell to accommodate asylum seekers or to express support for those accommodated there.” Violent disorder broke out (para 21). Faced with this violent situation, the local authority applied for an interim injunction requiring the owner to cease using the hotel to accommodate asylum seekers pending trial of the authority’s claim based on planning law. 

To understand the case properly, it is useful to start with a short history of the UK government’s legal obligation to house asylum seekers, its attempts in recent years to fulfil that obligation and the efforts made by various local authorities to rely upon planning law to reject the particular ways in which it chose to implement that obligation.

Asylum accommodation in the 2000s and 2010s

In the early 2000s, the Labour government introduced a policy of dispersing asylum applicants throughout the country rather than, as previously, giving them a choice (which, in most cases, turned out to be somewhere in London or South East England). The government also restricted the ability for asylum seekers to support themselves financially by working. On its face, a 1999 Act empowered but did not oblige the government to house destitute asylum seekers. However, from 2005, it issued regulations under that Act accepting such a duty, under pressure from and subsequently reinforced by court decisions. 

In the early 2010s, the new Conservative – Liberal Democrat coalition government outsourced the arrangement of such accommodation. The current iteration of that policy is centred around ten-year regional contracts running through to August 2029. A privately-owned company, Clearsprings, covers the South of England and Wales; a London-listed company, Serco, addresses the East, North West and Midlands of England; and another London-listed company, Mears, is responsible for Yorkshire, North East England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

During the 2010s, the number of asylum applications decided within six months deteriorated from 87% in 2012 to around 50% in 2017, then to 13% at the start of 2020. According to Migration Observatory, it has fallen even lower since (figure 9). For a variety of reasons, the number of asylum applications then rose sharply from around 40k a year in the late 2010s to around 100k a year since 2021. These factors combined to increase the backlog of unresolved applications to a peak of 175k in 2023 (figure 10). It has since fallen, but still stood at 109k on 31 March 2025. 

Most asylum seekers and their dependants have in recent years been housed in what the Home Office calls “dispersal accommodation” – self-contained properties owned by private landlords. But the increasing case backlog led to a shortfall of available  properties by 2020. The Conservative government of the day experimented with a large barge, a handful of disused military sites and removal to Rwanda, but its main response in practical terms was to buy space in hotels. This is much more expensive per individual than regular accommodation (figure 9) and widely acknowledged as unsatisfactory for other reasons, so it has always been stated to be a temporary measure. But the ongoing growth of the backlog increased the need for such accommodation with the result that, by late 2023, 45% of asylum seekers were reported by the Home Office to be housed in hotels. This figure remained at 30% as at 30 June 2025. The financial cost of the asylum system has also ballooned in recent years, from £0.7b in 2018/19 to over £5b in 2023/24 (figure 11). Most (£3b) of that latter figure was hotel costs (Home Office 2023/4 annual report, page 82).

There have also been significant changes in geographical distribution of asylum seekers in recent years. In 2014, 75% of UK local authorities did not host applicants, and most of those which did were in London or much further north.. By the end of 2024, the number not hosting had fallen to 16% (figure 5). In recent years, the number of applicants accommodated in the areas around London – the South East and East of England – with the majority of applicants in those regions accommodated in hotels (figure 4). 

To grasp the reality of the situation, forced and voluntary removals from the UK over the last five years have been around 22% of the number of refusals (21k out of 97k): as the Free Movement team puts it, “even those who lose their asylum cases — a relatively small minority at the moment, given the rise in the grant rate — are likely to remain in the United Kingdom in the long term. No government has been willing to engage with this policy issue since 2010.”

Legal challenges based on planning law

In late 2022, several local authorities in England sued local hotel owners and the relevant Home Office contractors, arguing that the proposed accommodation of asylum applicants amounted to a “material change” from the permitted use as hotels.

Planning permission is based on the idea that you can only use your property for specific use classes for which permission has been granted by the local authority (or, on appeal, by the central planning inspectorate or, exceptionally, by the Secretary of State).

Use class C1 covers use “as a hotel or as a boarding or guest house [with] no significant element of care.” Originally, “hostel” was included in class C1, but the Conservative government announced in 1994 that hostels were damaging the “amenity” (planning jargon for positive character) of traditional hotel areas and would be deleted from class C1. A planning inspector’s decision quoted by the Court of Appeal in Westminster City Council v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government [2015] EWCA Civ 482 at [4] states that the reason was that such hostels “had been attracting large numbers of benefit claimants.” Article 3(6)(i) of the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987 (as amended) confirms that hostels are to be treated as a sui generis use rather than falling into any of the specific use classes. 

The line between hotel and hostel is undefined in legislation. Paras 60 to 62 of a ministerial circular of 2005 (withdrawn in 2014 without replacement on this point) suggested some indicative factors. The Court of Appeal in the Westminster case noted that the parties in that case did not question them, but remarked that the “distinction between hotel use and hostel use is a fine one.”

It is important to note that, even if there is a change of use beyond the permitted use class(es), it can only be prevented if it is “material.” This requires consideration, in a case-specific way, of the consequences resulting from the change.

The 2022 cases

In late 2022, Stoke-on-Trent city council applied for an interim injunction on the basis that the use of a hotel to accommodate asylum seekers was a material change of use. This was rejected by Linden J on 2 November 2022 in an unreported decision. But two other councils which had heard about this case adopted a similar argument to challenge the proposed use of hotels for asylum accommodation in Ipswich and near Hull. Their applications for interim injunctions were heard together by Holgate J, as he then was, on 8 November 2022. He rejected them both on 11 November 2022 in reported judgments. The Home Office’s relevant main contractors, Serco and Mears, were among the defendants but the Home Office itself was not a party and not represented directly. Ipswich Borough Council v Fairview Hotels (Ipswich) Limited  [2022] EWHC 2868 (KB).

Holgate J accepted that each side had an arguable case on the merits of the case, with the interim injunction therefore coming down to the usual “balance of convenience”: an assessment of the relative benefits and harms of grant or refusal.

The councils in the Ipswich case did not claim harm to the things commonly relied upon in planning cases – environment, traffic or the general amenity of the area. They mainly relied upon an argument about economic harm: that making the hotels unavailable for tourist and business travel would damage the local hospitality industry. Against that, the judge noted (para 123) that the intended asylum use was temporary and that there was “an unprecedented increase in the number of asylum seekers, the vast majority of whom have to be accommodated” by the Home Office under its statutory duties. “The Home Office has therefore had to commission, as a matter of urgency, sole use contracts for hotels in various parts of the country… [W]ithout such facilities there is a real risk of some asylum seekers becoming homeless.” The balance of convenience clearly lay, in the judge’s assessment, in favour of refusing an injunction. 

The same month, a similar case came before the same judge concerning a hotel in Wisbech, in the East of England: Fenland District Council v CBPRP Ltd [2022] EWHC 3132 (KB). Rather than rely on economic points as in the Ipswich / Hull cases, the council provided some rather vague evidence about risks of criminal exploitation of vulnerable asylum seekers, particularly children, and argued that this would dilute the effectiveness of an already-stretched police force. It also relied upon social media activity indicating a “risk of social tensions.” In his judgment on 25 November 2022, the judge found this evidence unpersuasive and concluded that such factors were outweighed by “the substantial weight to be given to the need to accommodate asylum seekers… in a system of supply which is having to deal with an unprecedented level of need” (para 62).

The following month, a further case came before Holgate J. This also concerned the proposed use of a hotel in the East of England: Great Yarmouth Borough Council v Al-Abdin [2022] EWHC 3476 (KB). This time, the judge decided to grant an interim injunction, distinguishing the earlier cases on the grounds that:

  1. There was a strong local development control policy in place protecting the seafront area for tourism uses and prohibiting hostels, and no evidence that Serco or the Home Office had taken this into account.
  2. The hotel in question had previously (in 2006) been the subject of a planning enforcement notice prohibiting its conversion to a hostel.
  3. The expected duration of use was longer in the Yarmouth case than in the Ipswich case.
  4. Serco and the Home Office had failed to consult the local authority adequately before making their decision. The local authority had offered alternatives, and there was no indication that these had been considered.

Factors (1) and (2) were regarded by the judge as giving the case a “flagrant character” (para 67). He concluded that “in the special circumstances of this case” the balance of convenience was in favour of an interim injunction covering the specific hotel and any other hotel in the seafront area covered by the development control plan (para 79). A final injunction is reported in Local Government Lawyer to have been granted by the same judge in May 2023.

Cases in 2023

In May 2023, an application by another East of England council for an interim injunction was rejected by Kerr J: West Lindsey District Council v Secretary of State for Defence [2023] EWHC 1400 (Admin). This was an attempt to prevent the use of a disused RAF base (Scampton) for asylum accommodation. That case concerned the extent of “permitted development rights” under class Q rather than the hotel / hostel distinction under class C1. But it is interesting to note the government’s submission at para 61 explaining the importance of an ability to use military sites as being in part that injunctions “have sometimes stopped the use of hotel accommodation where that involves a change of use from hotel to hostel which can, in some cases, be a flagrant breach of planning control.” A similar application by Braintree council (also East of England) to prevent the use of a disused RAF base in reliance on the class Q point was rejected in April 2023: see Braintree District Council v Secretary of State for the Home Department  [2023] EWHC 1076 (KB), with the Court of Appeal dismissing an appeal in June 2023: [2023] EWCA Civ 727; [2023] 1 WLR 3087; [2023] WLR(D) 271.

The following month, an attempt by Carmarthernshire council (Wales) to enjoin the use of a hotel in Llanelli was rejected by Deputy Judge Mansfield. 

Developments in late 2024 and 2025

In July 2024, the Labour party won the UK general election, replacing the Conservative government. Labour’s manifesto included a commitment to “clear the Conservatives’ backlog and end asylum hotels,” It has repeatedly confirmed this policy once in government, and stated that its target is to do so by the time of the next election in 2029. 

Under the Conservative government, many of the relevant hotels were arranged through Stay Belvedere Hotels (SBH), a subsidiary of one of the Home Office’s regional contractors, Clearsprings. In March 2025, the Home Office announced that it was terminating the SBH relationship because of performance concerns and transferring responsibility for the hotels to the two other regional contractors and to CTM (North) Ltd. CTM is a subsidiary of an Australian business travel accommodation company and has gained UK experience in some previous contracts outside the main regional arrangements, including the Stockholm Bibi asylum barge contract. The new CTM hotel arrangement runs from April 2025 to August 2029. 

The topic remains highly controversial politically. A few weeks after the July 2024 election, following false rumours that the murders of children in Southport (North West England) had been committed by an asylum applicant or a Muslim (in fact, they had been committed by a British-born non-Muslim), there was serious violent disorder focused on asylum hotels and mosques.

The Epping Forest case in 2025

The relevant facts in the latest case are summarised at the start of this article. 

Some procedural planning law points arose about whether the local authority should have proceeded via a statutory stop notice or enforcement notice, but the judge held that these were not determinative. An attempt by the authority to seek an interim declaration was dismissed by the court. The real issue came down to whether an interim injunction should be granted, applying the usual balance of convenience test.

A point which may be considered of some importance was the hotel owner’s operations director’s unchallenged evidence that “the previous periods when the [hotel] was used to accommodate asylum seekers passed without incident or concern. He attributes the current difficulties to those conducting violent and disorderly protests and to the measures needed to address those” (para 14).

The only defendant was the small company which owned the hotel. This was in contrast to the earlier cases in which the main Home Office contractor had been included as a further defendant. The hotel owner’s counsel criticised the claimant for not including the contractor, but the judge rejected that criticism (para 4).

The arguments on the merits were essentially about application of the concepts explored in the Ipswich and Great Yarmouth cases in 2022, with the court accepting that each party had an arguable case on the hotel/hostel and material change points.

The judge regarded three points on the facts of this case as weighing in the council’s favour.

The first point was a milder version of the council’s argument that the hotel owner’s action had been “flagrant” and “surreptitious” because it had “indicated that it would make an application for permission for change of use and then changed its position at short notice.” The judge considered that this argument was exaggerated. The hotel owner’s approach was neither flagrant nor surreptitious: it had acted “in good faith” and “openly.” However, he did regard the owner as “deliberately confronting the [authority] with a choice between either accepting the position… or taking enforcement action” with the result that there has been no “structured and considered assessment of the position through the planning process.” The judge regarded this point as “of particular weight” (para 107).

The second point was that the judge was so impressed by what he regarded as the merit of the council’s arguments (para 100) about change of use that, exceptionally in a balance of convenience exercise, he took these merits, as he saw them, into account (para 108).

With greater hesitation, the judge also relied upon a third point: the council’s reliance on “the fear of crime resulting from the use of the Bell; the need to address lawful protests; and the consequences of the actions taken to address unlawful activity are relevant factors in support of interim relief. There are all factors of limited weight and the weight diminishes as one moves along that list” (para 109). But he did give them some weight, adding that the hotel was already in operation so the impact on amenity was already occurring, unlike in the Ipswich case (para 110).

The judge rejected the council’s other proposed factors. The assertion of possible “community tensions which would not heal” was “essentially speculation” (para 111). An attempt to rely on development control policies also failed to convince him, as the policies in this case were markedly different from the “narrowly-focused and clearly relevant planning policy with which Holgate J was concerned in Great Yarmouth” (para 112).

Against these factors weighing in favour of an injunction, the judge noted that the most important factor weighing against was the public interest in the accommodation of destitute asylum seekers (para 114), with a secondary factor being the financial impact on the hotel owner (para 115).

The owner also argued that “the current application has been triggered by unlawful activity to which no weight should be attached and by unjustified speculation.” The judge, however, considered that the council was not to be criticised for only applying once violent protests had broken out: if anything, its reactive approach weighed in favour of granting the injunction (para 117). One can imagine that this statement may be of concern to the Home Office in the signal it sends about the indirect success which unlawful violence may achieve by prompting the local authority to seek an injunction and the court in turn to grant it.

Having listed all these factors, the judge concluded that the balance of convenience was in favour of an interim injunction. 

Subsequent events

It has been reported that the Home Office sought to intervene in the case “at the eleventh hour” but that the judge refused this. It has also been reported that both the hotel owner and the Home Office are seeking permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal (including, in the case of the Home Office, an appeal against the refusal of its intervention application).

It will be interesting to see to what extent the Court of Appeal addresses, in the balance, the consequences which appear rapidly to be flowing from the decision, despite the judge’s emphasis on fact-sensitivity. If the Home Office has advised multiple owners not to apply for planning permission (as stated by the owner in this case) then Eyre J’s “deliberateness” factor will presumably apply there as well. His view about the merits of the council’s case, if accepted by other judges, also seems likely to be applicable in other cases. The case therefore seems less likely than the Great Yarmouth one to be confinable to its special facts.

Also, on 20 August 2025, the day after the decision was made, the Conservative opposition leader was reported as writing to 33 other Conservative-controlled councils to encourage them to “take the same steps if your legal advice supports it” with the Conservative shadow home secretary arguing the same day for the replacement of hotel accommodation with barges and military bases. Councils anticipating the closing down of further hotels at short notice are reported to be using their existing powers to limit another possible alternative, homes in multiple occupation (HMOs). 

If the Court of Appeal refuses to reverse the injunction, the government of course has the option of litigating or settling each case individually and scrambling to manage the situation while trying to reduce the backlog.

Or it may attempt a more general response via secondary legislation to amend the definition of hotel in the use classes. But this will no doubt have a political cost. The politics are such that perhaps it will even raise the possibility of a (very unusual) challenge via the “negative procedure” which applies to the amendment of use classes. 

Faced with various unhappy options, it is not surprising that the government’s latest move (at the time of writing) has been to announce, on 24 August 2025, a new effort to reduce the asylum case backlog.

Featured image: photo of The Bell Hotel, Epping Forest, by David Howard, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-SA 2.0). Reproduced with thanks.