Councils are taking legal action to stop the government using local hotels to house asylum seekers.
At least four local authorities have secured temporary injunctions against Home Office plans, blocking the department’s efforts to find accommodation for asylum seekers.
The home secretary Suella Braverman has come under scrutiny for her handling of the Manston immigration centre in Kent. The site is at least three times over capacity because asylum seekers were not being moved on quickly enough to hotel accommodation.
However, councils have pushed back against Home Office plans to transfer asylum seekers to hotels in their area.
Great Yarmouth Borough Council said it has taken legal action due to the “absence of any meaningful dialogue” with the Home Office.
The council said that it had secured an interim injunction in relation to one hotel in a “prime tourism location where there is a proposed use as a hotel for accommodating asylum seekers”.
This is subject to a final hearing this month, the authority in Norfolk said.
The council has also served a temporary stop notice on a hotel currently being used to house asylum seekers, but the notice has now expired, and the council is “considering further enforcement action”.
“The absence of any meaningful dialogue or intention to follow due process by the Home Office has resulted in us pursuing this course of action,” Great Yarmouth Borough Council said.
East Riding of Yorkshire Council, Stoke City Council and Ipswich Borough Council are also taking legal action.
Stoke-on-Trent City Council went to court to seek an injunction against the owner of a hotel in Shelton, and against Serco, the Home Office contractor.
The council argued that the proposed 88-bedroom hotel did not have planning permission to become interim asylum accommodation.
They said that Stoke-on-Trent was already hosting around 800 asylum seekers in dispersal accommodation, which was putting pressure on local services.
Jake Thorold, representing the local authority, told the court that it “cannot be right” that “the Home Office can choose to contract with any hotel that is willing to do so and move asylum seekers in breach of planning controls”.
In Ipswich, the council took legal action after the Home Office secured a contract to house 200 asylum seekers in a town centre hotel.
They secured a court injunction that also prevents the use of other hotels, but does not apply to refugees who have already arrived.
In East Yorkshire, the council secured another injunction to prevent hotels in the East Riding of Yorkshire from being used to host asylum seekers.
Local MP David Davis had criticised plans to use a hotel in the area for asylum accommodation, saying that it was “lacking appropriate amenities to support migrants”.
“East Riding Council and I have been resisting the proposals since the Home Office first made us aware of them,” Mr Davis said.
He added that the Home Office had been acting with “frankly unacceptable and wholly inappropriate behaviour”.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “The number of people arriving in the UK who seek asylum and require accommodation has reached record levels, placing unprecedented pressures on the asylum system.
“The Home Office and partners identify sites for accommodation based on whether they are safe and available.
“While we accept that hotels do not provide a long-term solution, they do offer safe, secure and clean accommodation, and we are working hard with local authorities to find appropriate accommodation during this challenging time.”
PA contributed to this report.
