Asylum hotels protests spread across UK as councils turn to courts

• by Arlen Fitzpatrick
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Councils take protests into courtrooms

In the space of a week, the UK’s asylum system gained a new flashpoint: hotels. Street protests have surged outside dozens of properties, and town halls are now marching into courtrooms to try to shut them down. The shift became real on 19 August when a judge backed Epping Forest council’s bid to close a hotel north of London that was accommodating asylum seekers. That decision didn’t just end one arrangement; it signalled to other councils that they might be able to do the same.

Opponents of hotel use celebrated the ruling as a green light. Activists who had spent weeks outside the site chanting “Send them home” said the court had validated their campaign. Within days, council leaders elsewhere began exploring similar actions, instructing lawyers, gathering planning evidence, and drafting claims. What had looked like a series of local standoffs suddenly became a coordinated push to challenge central government placements through planning and public law.

The legal route is straightforward in theory and thorny in practice. Councils argue that switching a hotel from short stays to long-term housing amounts to a change of use that needs planning permission, and that large-scale placements breach local planning policy or create safety and nuisance risks. The Home Office has typically countered that emergency powers, contractual arrangements with providers, and the temporary nature of the placements justify the use. Judges must weigh local plans, statutory duties to people seeking protection, and the realities of an overloaded system that has leaned on hotels for years.

While lawyers get to work, the streets have grown louder. Over the weekend, rallies took place outside hotels in Bristol, Leicester, Newcastle, and Liverpool. These weren’t a repeat of the violent racist riots that erupted last August after the Southport killings. But the tone was often harsh. Speakers hammered anti-migrant talking points, and posters and chants crossed into open xenophobia. In several cities, anti-racist counter-protesters were outnumbered.

Horley, Surrey, showed how the new pattern looks. Outside the Four Points by Sheraton, roughly 200 demonstrators gathered on Saturday to oppose the accommodation. Around 30 people from the Stand Up to Racism group assembled at the station under police protection, separated from the main crowd. The event drew online amplification from Reform UK, which has been riding a polling wave and, according to recent snapshots, holds a double-digit lead over the governing Labour Party. That political backdrop matters: rallies are not happening in a vacuum. Parties hoping to gain ground are feeding the message and drawing it into the electoral contest.

Behind the public rows lies a blunt statistic. About 200 hotels across the UK are housing roughly 32,000 asylum seekers. The Home Office classifies them as “contingency accommodation,” the stopgap it turns to when standard dispersal housing can’t be found. The idea was always that hotels would be used sparingly and for short periods. Instead, they became a pressure valve for a system that didn’t have enough places to send people while their claims were processed.

Campaigners and local leaders have spent months listing the downsides. For people living inside, hotel rooms are cramped, lack privacy, and are often shared with strangers for months. That can grind down mental health, especially for those already recovering from trauma. In mixed-sex settings, women have reported harassment and, in some cases, sexual abuse by other residents or by staff. Oversight is patchy, with a chain of contractors and subcontractors responsible for day-to-day management, security, and support.

There’s also the economic hit. A hotel used for long-term placements isn’t hosting weddings, local clubs, or conferences. In some towns, that means fewer places to work, fewer visitors coming in, and less trade for nearby cafes and shops. And when a hotel becomes a target for weekly protests, nearby residents feel it. Sirens, road closures, and tense stand-offs become part of the weekend routine.

Then there’s the money. Hotels are a costly way to house people compared with normal dispersal flats or shared houses arranged through councils. Ministers from both the previous and current governments have said the same thing: reduce reliance on hotels and move to cheaper, more stable options. That pledge has been repeated for two years straight, but the numbers in hotels remain stubborn because the pipeline of alternative housing is thin, and the backlog of cases is still large.

In May 2023, the Home Office launched a “full-dispersal” model, requiring every local authority in England, Scotland, and Wales to take in people according to its population size. The idea was to spread the load more fairly and find spaces more quickly. Some councils accepted allocations and worked to open new sites. Others pushed back, arguing they had no available stock, weak local services, or serious safeguarding concerns. In practice, dispersal expanded, but not enough to empty the hotels.

The government also tried big, high-capacity sites. In 2022, ministers floated the use of large facilities on government-owned land and even vessels as alternatives to hotels. Campaign groups warned about the conditions and the isolation of people placed on out-of-town sites. A report by the National Audit Office later found that refurbishing large sites could cost more than continuing with hotels. Right now, only one such site is operating: a former military base at Wethersfield in Essex. The bigger rollout never materialised.

That history helps explain why protests have moved from car parks to courtrooms. On the ground, opponents are running a two-track strategy. Street demonstrations aim to pressure hotel operators and draw media coverage. Legal actions aim to bind councils and providers with court orders or planning rulings. The Epping Forest case is the first big example of the latter—and it has set a template that other councils want to follow.

What happens next hinges on a few hard choices. If more councils succeed in court, the Home Office could face sudden hotel closures. That would force rapid re-placements into other areas or sites, potentially turning those places into the next protest locations. Ministers could appeal key rulings, rewrite guidance, and speed up funding for dispersal housing. Or they could double down on enforcement and deterrence, hoping fewer arrivals reduce demand for rooms.

Charities working with asylum seekers are warning of a different risk: people getting lost in the shuffle. Closing a hotel without a ready alternative can mean busing residents hundreds of miles away with little notice, disrupting medical care, legal appointments, and schooling for children. In the worst cases, if placements break down, it can mean rough sleeping. That’s why those groups are pushing for a predictable path: faster decisions on claims, steady move-on into community housing, and consistent local support.

Police have their own calculus. Every fresh call for a protest or counter-protest adds strain to already stretched public order teams. Forces have to separate crowds, protect residents, and keep hotel staff and contractors safe, often with limited warning. That costs money and ties up officers who could be dealing with other priorities. It also raises the temperature in towns that have not seen large demonstrations in years.

The political currents are strong. Reform UK has turned hotels into a rallying point while courting voters frustrated with migration policy. Local councils—some led by independents or fragile coalitions—are trying to show they’re listening to constituents angry about both the principle and the practical fallout of hotel use. The Labour government faces the harder, slower task of changing the machinery: cutting backlogs, securing housing stock, and standing up enough caseworkers to keep people moving through the system.

Much of the public debate blends different questions into one. Are hotels an acceptable short-term fix? How long is “short-term” when the average stay stretches into months? How do communities share responsibility fairly without concentrating placements in the same areas again and again? And how do you protect people who have fled conflict or persecution while also protecting women and children in mixed settings and addressing real safeguarding failures when they occur?

The legal arguments will turn on planning law and procedure. Expect more councils to argue that mass placements fundamentally alter a hotel’s use, triggering the need for permission, risk assessments, and mitigation. Expect the Home Office and contractors to point to the temporary nature of arrangements, national necessity, and the steps they say they’ve taken to manage risks. Judges will look for evidence: records of incidents, complaints, occupancy numbers, and what alternatives were genuinely available when decisions were made.

On the ground, hotel managers are caught in the middle. These are commercial businesses with year-round calendars that suddenly become social policy tools. Some have found steady income in government contracts. Others have struggled with extra security costs, wear and tear, and the reputational hit that comes with weekly protests on the doorstep. For neighbouring businesses—pubs, gyms, salons—the story varies: a busier street on some days, a disrupted Saturday on others.

For the 32,000 people inside the system, the debate feels abstract. Many are waiting for an initial decision. Some have been granted refugee status and are trying to find private rentals in a tight market, only to discover deposits they can’t afford and landlords who say no. Others are appealing refusals. Across that group, the shared refrain is uncertainty: new rooms, new towns, new rules, and a long wait for an answer that will decide their future.

There are levers that can shift the picture. The Home Office can increase the pace of decisions by hiring more caseworkers and simplifying processes, which it has pledged to do. Councils can partner with housing associations and landlords to bring forward more dispersal homes if the funding covers real costs and support services. Community groups can help with orientation, language lessons, and local networks that reduce isolation and friction.

But the politics won’t be gentle. Each closed hotel will be hailed by one side and lamented by the other. Each protest that stays peaceful will be cited as proof that “communities are simply speaking up,” while any clash will be used to say the threat is growing. And beneath the noise, the core constraint remains the same: without enough viable housing and a steadier flow of decisions, the system will keep defaulting to the quickest available option. For the past two years, that option has been hotels.

How asylum hotels became the battleground

To see how we got here, it helps to rewind. The asylum backlog grew as claims outpaced the system’s ability to decide them, with the pandemic adding delays and remote working challenges. Local dispersal contracts did not expand fast enough to match arrivals. When standard placements ran out, the government leaned on commercial hotels because they were available, configurable, and could be booked at scale with private providers.

Once that model set in, a chain reaction followed. Hotels filled. Caseworkers struggled to move people on. Councils saw higher costs in health, social care, and schooling without full funding certainty. The public saw familiar buildings change use almost overnight and worried about safety, fairness, and transparency. Campaigners focused on safeguarding failures and the mental health toll. And opponents of immigration saw a clear target—a building with a sign out front—and took their message there.

The Epping Forest ruling showed that courts may be open to specific, evidence-based claims about local impact and planning. If more councils line up credible cases, we could see a patchwork of orders and injunctions that shift people from one set of hotels to another, with the risk of simply moving the problem down the road. If judges back the government’s stance in other cases, we could see a pause in closures and a renewed push to keep existing sites running while alternatives come online.

For now, the direction of travel is clear: more protests, more legal filings, more pressure on ministers to set a different course. The policy goal is also clear: cut the use of asylum hotels and replace them with community-based housing that’s safer, cheaper, and more stable. Getting there will be the hard part—and the next few rulings will tell us whether the courts see hotels as a temporary necessity or a use that local planning rules can choke off, one postcode at a time.