The local council of the town of Epping, northeast of London, filed a court appeal on Tuesday to prevent asylum seekers from being housed in a hotel in the town, where several protests, some of them violent, took place last month.
Epping has been experiencing recurring tensions since July, following the indictment of an asylum seeker accused of attempting to kiss a 14-year-old girl, which he denied.
On several occasions, gatherings took place under heavy police presence outside the Bell Hotel, known for accommodating asylum seekers. Some of these turned violent, leaving eight police officers injured and resulting in the arrest of at least ten people.
On 27 July, counter-protesters responding to calls from anti-racist groups also gathered in Epping.
In response to the tense atmosphere, the local council announced on Tuesday that it had filed an injunction with the High Court to ban the accommodation of asylum seekers at the Bell Hotel.
In a statement, it cited "the clear risk of escalating community tensions."
"The current situation cannot continue. If the Bell Hotel were a nightclub, we would have closed it down long ago," Council Chairman Chris Whitbread was quoted as saying in the statement.
He accused the Home Office of remaining deaf to local concerns and pointed out that the migrants being housed there were not subject to any checks on their criminal records.
The use of the hotel risks exacerbating already high community tensions and causing irreparable harm to the local community, which will only increase with the start of the school year, according to the Council Chairman, who pointed out that five schools are located nearby.
The Labour government has said it is working to have fewer hotels used to house asylum seekers. It pointed out that the number had fallen from 400 in Summer 2023 to under 210 today.
In addition to Epping, protests have also taken place in other English towns. These include Nuneaton, Warwickshire, where residents demonstrated on Saturday after two men identified by local media as Afghan asylum seekers were charged with the rape of a 12-year-old girl.
Authorities fear these tensions could spread, similar to the anti-immigration riots that rocked the United Kingdom last summer.
