A hotel housing asylum seekers that has attracted repeated violent far-right demonstrations has been ordered closed down by a high court judge.
Mr Justice Eyre granted an urgent request for an interim injunction against the owners of the Bell hotel in Epping, Essex, after hearing the local council’s complaints that they were breaching planning law by changing the site’s use.
Epping district council also cited disruption caused by the protests, which followed the charging of two people staying at the hotel with sexual offences, and concerns for the safety of the asylum seekers themselves.
Lawyers for the hotel’s owners had argued the council was trying to stop the protests, and that no planning concerns justified taking the “exceptional step” of issuing an urgent order to close down the hotel, rather than dealing with the matter via conventional enforcement action or at a final injunction hearing.
Sitting at the Royal Courts of Justice on Tuesday, the judge agreed with the council that an urgent order was required to close down the operation. He said the hotel’s operator had until 12 September to comply – subject to a possible appeal.