Epping Bell Hotel wins right to challenge ruling that blocked asylum housing

Epping hotel owner secures appeal as councils eye copycat legal action

The long-running row over hotel-based migrant accommodation took a fresh turn after the owner of the Bell Hotel in Epping won permission to challenge a High Court decision that stopped the site being used to house asylum seekers. The appeal sets up a key test of how planning law applies to the Home Office’s hotel programme—and whether councils can shut it down through the courts.

On 19 August 2025, Epping Forest District Council secured an interim injunction forcing Somani Hotels Ltd to stop using the Bell Hotel for asylum accommodation within 23 days. Mr Justice Eyre ruled that placing people at the hotel under a Home Office contract was a different planning use from normal hotel trade and therefore required permission that had not been granted.

The owner has now been cleared to take that decision to the Court of Appeal. The Home Office, which tried and failed to formally intervene at the High Court and was ordered to pay the council’s costs, is also pursuing its own appeal on aspects of the judgment. The two tracks raise a broader question: is a hotel still a hotel when rooms are block-booked for government placements over months at a time?

The Bell Hotel has been part of the Home Office’s accommodation network twice. It first hosted asylum accommodation from October 2022 to April 2024 with no recorded incident cited in court. After a year-long closure, it returned to the scheme in April 2025 under a contract between Somani Hotels and CTM (North) Ltd, one of the companies supplying rooms to the Home Office. By July this year, the site had become a magnet for anti-migrant protests and far-right activity, increasing the political heat around the case.

Security Minister Dan Jarvis has said the Government wants to close all asylum hotels in a “managed and ordered” way. That pledge sits awkwardly with the legal fight now under way. The appeal could either reinforce councils’ ability to push hotels out of the system or make it harder for local authorities to use planning law to do so quickly.

What the High Court decided—and what comes next

The council’s legal theory was simple: using the Bell Hotel for long-term Home Office placements amounted to a “material change of use.” The judge agreed, saying the use was “sui generis”—in other words, a one-off category not covered by the hotel class (Class C1) on the planning grid. In plain English, the court saw a clear shift from short-stay commercial guests to a state-run, block-booked facility with different patterns of occupation and management.

Why does that matter? Under planning rules, a material change of use often needs permission. If permission is missing, councils can seek an injunction to stop the activity while the case continues. That is what happened here. The order gave the hotel 23 days to wind down the placements, tightening the timeline for both the operator and the Home Office.

Permission to appeal means senior judges will now look at whether the High Court applied the law correctly, not rehear the entire dispute from scratch. The Court of Appeal could focus on issues like the character of hotel use, the weight given to the Home Office’s involvement, and how similar past uses have been treated. A core point is whether intensity, duration, and control of the premises tip a hotel into a different planning use.

There’s a practical wrinkle too. An appeal does not automatically pause an injunction. Lawyers expect the parties to argue over whether enforcement should be stayed while appeal judges consider the case. Without a stay, the hotel would have to comply with the order even as the legal battle continues.

The background tells its own story. The Bell’s public trade collapsed during the pandemic, and after reopening in August 2022 it saw low occupancy. That commercial context matters because it explains why the hotel turned to bulk government bookings—an arrangement that, in turn, triggered the planning clash. What looks like continuity from a business perspective can look like a sharp break in land-use terms once you examine who controls the rooms and how the site operates day to day.

The politics are now spilling across local government. Spelthorne Borough Council and Broxbourne Borough Council have sought legal advice on similar challenges, encouraged by the Epping ruling. If the appeal upholds the High Court’s approach, more councils are likely to test the same route: argue sui generis, claim material change, and seek fast injunctions. If the appeal goes the other way, expect councils to pivot to planning enforcement notices or policy lobbying rather than court orders.

For hotel operators, the stakes are clear. A finding of sui generis use pushes them into a permission process that can be lengthy, contested, and uncertain. Some will ask whether temporary permissions or conditions could bridge the gap. Others may reassess participating in Home Office contracts if the planning risk looks too high or if timelines are too tight to make the numbers work.

For the Home Office, this case is about logistics as much as law. Hotels were used as a pressure valve for a system short on dedicated accommodation. If courts rule that widespread hotel use triggers planning changes across the board, the department could face a moving target: negotiating with planning authorities area by area, each with its own local plan, political pressures, and community concerns.

Residents in Epping have already felt the strain of the national row landing on their doorstep. Protests since July have pulled in campaigners from outside the area and drawn police resources, while the council has argued that its position is about planning control and local impact rather than migration policy. The hotel’s earlier period of quiet operation—October 2022 to April 2024—adds another layer, suggesting that public order concerns are not fixed but shaped by what is happening in the wider debate.

Legal experts watching the case say its value lies in providing a clearer line on when a hotel stops being a hotel in planning terms. They expect the appeal to probe factors like length of stay, who books the rooms, whether services change, and how the site is managed. The more a property looks and runs like a state-managed hostel, the stronger the council’s argument. The more it looks like a normal hotel with long bookings, the stronger the operator’s case.

Key dates help map the terrain:

• October 2022: Bell Hotel begins hosting asylum accommodation.
• April 2024: Hotel closes.
• April 2025: Asylum accommodation resumes under Somani Hotels’ contract with CTM (North) Ltd.
• July 2025: Far-right activity and anti-migrant protests flare around the site.
• 19 August 2025: High Court grants interim injunction against continued use for asylum accommodation.
• Late August 2025: Hotel owner wins permission to appeal; Home Office pursues its own appeal after failing to intervene at first instance and being ordered to pay the council’s costs.

However the Court of Appeal lands, the judgment will ripple far beyond Epping. Councils weighing legal action will get a stronger steer on the planning tools available to them. Hotel groups will get a sharper picture of risk. And the Home Office will learn whether it must bolt a planning strategy onto its accommodation contracts—or find faster alternatives as it tries to wind down hotels “in a managed and ordered way.”