Cooper to fight closure of Epping migrant hotel

Home Office is to seek to appeal the High Court ruling to shut down the Bell Hotel in Essex

Daily Telegraph 

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22 August 2025 

Yvette Cooper is to seek to appeal the High Court ruling to shut down a migrant hotel in Essex.

The Home Secretary announced the Home Office will seek to appeal the temporary injunction forcing the closure of the Bell Hotel in Epping.

In a statement, she warned that the asylum system would be plunged into “chaos” if hotels across the country were closed as a result of “piecemeal court decisions” sparked by councils or residents’ legal actions.

“That is the reason for the Home Office appeal in this case, to ensure that going forward, the closure of all hotels can be done in a properly managed way right across the country without creating problems for other areas and local councils,” she said.

It follows a successful High Court action by Epping council to close the Bell for not having planning permission after it became a focus for anti-immigration protests. It ordered all the asylum seekers must leave it by Sept 12 unless the owner, Somani Hotels, challenges the injunction in the court of appeal.

Other councils including those controlled by Labour have since threatened to mount similar legal actions to shut asylum hotels in their areas.

The Home Office lawyers told the High Court there could be “similar applications” elsewhere that would “aggravate pressures on the asylum estate”.

The Home Office, which tried but failed to intervene in the case on Tuesday, warned the decision “ran the risk of acting as an impetus for further violent protests” and that injunction applications could become a “new norm adopted by local authorities”.

It will now seek to appeal the refusal of the judge to allow the Home Office to be a party to the High Court legal action.

Ms Cooper said: “We agree with communities across the country that all asylum hotels need to close, including the Bell Hotel, and we are working to do so as swiftly as possible as part of an orderly, planned and sustained programme that avoids simply creating problems for other areas or local councils as a result of piecemeal court decisions or a return to the kind of chaos which led to so many hotels being opened in the first place.

She added: “What we cannot have is a replica of the chaotic and disorderly situation that we saw under the previous government in 2022, when 140 extra hotels were opened in the space of six months because they lost control of the system.

“The previous government which caused that chaos is now trying to pretend that their time in office didn’t happen, and are simply trying to make the situation worse.”

Reform UK and the Tories have urged their councils to mount legal actions like Epping and called on their supporters to protest at hotels. Asylum hotels across the UK are set to face a co-ordinated wave of demonstrations this weekend.

There are currently more than 32,000 asylum seekers housed in up to 210 hotels.

It is understood the Home Office is seeking to have the appeal decided before the Sept 12 deadline for the asylum seekers’ removal under the High Court injunction. If successful, it would prevent the migrants being transferred out of the Bell.

Home Office lawyers are applying for permission to appeal the High Court’s refusal to allow it to join the case with Somani Hotels, to be allowed to participate in any appeal brought by the hotel against the injunction and to challenge the injunction.

Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said: “It is completely wrong that the Labour Government is taking legal action to keep the Bell Hotel open. The Government isn’t listening to the public or to the courts.

“Instead of trying to keep illegal immigrants in expensive hotels the Conservatives would immediately deport all illegal arrivals and ensure towns like Epping are never put in this position again.

“This problem is being caused because 2025 so far is the worst year ever for illegal immigrants crossing the channel. Most are young men who have paid people smugglers to illegally enter the UK. Labour has lost control of our borders and communities up and down the country are paying the price.”

Ms Cooper said the Government was committed to deliver on its pledge to end the use of asylum hotels by the end of the Parliament in 2029.

“The number of asylum hotels is now around half what it was at its peak under the previous government, when more than 400 hotels were in use at a cost of almost £9 million per day. Over the course of 2024/25, we reduced the cost of asylum hotels by almost a billion pounds compared to the previous financial year,” she said.

“But we have committed to go much further to reduce those costs, and to end the use of asylum hotels entirely.”

Dan Jarvis, security minister, said: “This Government will close all asylum hotels and we will clear up the mess that we inherited from the previous government.

“We’ve made a commitment that we will close all of the asylum hotels by the end of this Parliament, but we need to do that in a managed and ordered way.

“And that’s why we’ll appeal this decision.”

Mr Jarvis vowed the Government will meet its 2024 manifesto commitment to “end asylum hotels” by the end of the Parliament in 2029.

Asked whether he was “worried about any copycat protests” following the High Court’s decision this week, the security minister told broadcasters: “We’ve made a very clear commitment that we’re going to close all of the asylum hotels.

“That was a manifesto commitment that we stood on and we will honour.

“We’re clearing up the legacy that we inherited from the previous government but the closures of these hotels need to be done in an ordered and managed way.”

An Epping Forest District Council spokesperson said: “We have no details at this stage but are disappointed it appears the Home Office hasn’t accepted the refusal of Mr Justice Eyre of permission to appeal against the dismissal by the judge of the Secretary of State’s application to be a party to the council’s claim against Somani Hotels Ltd, owners of the Bell Hotel.”