KB-2025-002908 - [2025] EWHC 2937 (KB)

Although initially procured by service providers as a short-term measure to deal with an exceptional increase in demand for accommodation during the pandemic, the pace and volatility at which the number of individuals requiring accommodation support has grown has meant it has become “critical and necessary” for the Home Secretary to source safe and suitable contingency accommodation sites at increasing scale, and short notice, in recent years. Despite the scale of use, contingency accommodation remains a temporary accommodation solution. As other forms of accommodation are secured, the number of people and the number of contingency sites will be, and have continued to be, reduced. In September 2023 there were a total of over 400 hotels in use as contingency accommodation for asylum seekers. As at late September 2025, under 200 hotels remained in use for that purpose.

The Bell is one of those hotels.

Ms Jones’ evidence was not challenged by the Claimant. It substantiates the need for the Home Secretary’s service providers, including CTM, to source and procure a substantial and continuing supply of contingency accommodation to enable the Home Secretary to discharge her statutory duties under sections 95 and 98 of the 1999 Act, to provide appropriate support, including accommodation, to asylum seekers pending the determination of their claims. The Claimant has been well aware since late February 2025 that the Bell has been identified as a suitable site at which to provide such accommodation. Officials from the Home Office, CTM, Essex County Council, the Claimant, local NHS providers, Essex Police and other relevant agencies have been involved in the process of bringing forward the Bell for use for that purpose since that date.

In her evidence, the Legal Services Manager told me that in considering her delegated decision to apply for an injunction, she realised that its grant would have an impact on those asylum seekers accommodated at the Bell, but as the Home Office had told the Claimant that once in use as contingency accommodation it could be decommissioned usually in four weeks “and given that the Home Office had access to a wide estate (including Crown land, such as disused military bases) and the Home Office was not advising the Council that that estate could not absorb those placed in the Bell Hotel”, the preponderance of factors pointing to rapid enforcement wasoverwhelming.

I find that evidence problematic. The Claimant had not notified the Home Office that as local planning authority it was considering taking enforcement action against the use of the Bell as asylum accommodation. Still less had the Claimant notified the Home Office that it was considering applying for an injunction to restrain the use of the Bell for that purpose under section 187B of the 1990 Act. The Claimant was in no position to make an informed judgement as to the practical challenge for the Home Secretary in finding alternative contingency accommodation for those asylum seekers currently accommodated at the Bell. In my view, it was unreasonable for the Claimant simply to assume that the Home Secretary would be able to absorb those displaced asylum seekers somewhere within Crown land or on a disused military base. It was frankly disingenuous to say that the Home Office “was not advising the Council that the estate could not absorb” those currently accommodated at the Bell. The Claimant had not raised that question with the Home Office. It is pertinent to note that I asked the Legal Services Manager to point me to any representations from the Defendant or the Home Office which were taken into consideration in the decision to apply for the injunction. None was drawn to my attention.

Mr Coppel KC submitted that the burden fell squarely on the Home Secretary to produce evidence to show that she was not able to accommodate those asylum seekers who would be displaced from the Bell, were the injunction to be granted, in suitable alternative accommodation. I do not accept that submission. Had the Claimant taken the trouble to notify the Home Office in early August 2025 that enforcement action in the form of an application under section 187B of the 1990 Act was now under serious consideration, as the Claimant ought reasonably to have done, it is highly likely that information substantially similar to that stated by Ms Jones in her evidence would have been drawn to the Claimant’s attention. I should have expected the Claimant, acting reasonably, to take that information into account in deciding whether enforcement action in the form of an application for an injunction was either necessary or appropriate.

In any event, I give little weight to the assertion that the Home Secretary has access to a ready supply of suitable alternative accommodation to which those currently accommodated at the Bell may readily be transferred. The difficulties experienced by the government in bringing accommodation on former military bases into use as accommodation for asylum seekers are well known. The Home Secretary’s current published “Allocation of asylum accommodation policy” (Version 13 – June 2025) promulgates “suitability criteria” which reflect her judgment that not all single adult male asylum seekers are suitable to be accommodated at such sites. The Claimant made the application for an injunction without having taken any steps to inform itself as local planning authority of the scale of need for hotel accommodation, including the Bell, to be retained in use for the purposes of meeting the Home Secretary’s statutory duties under the 1999 Act. To the extent to which I now have information on that obviously relevant factor in the light of Ms Jones’ evidence, it clearly points to a continuing need to rely on hotels at least in the short to medium term as an important source of supply of contingency accommodation. I bear in mind that the current contractual arrangements between CTM and the Defendant provide for the use of the Bell as contingency accommodation to cease no later than the beginning of April 2026.

Nor do I accept the Claimant’s criticisms of the consultative process which the Home Office initiated in February 2025 with a view to bringing the Bell back into use as contingency accommodation for asylum seekers. The contemporary documents show that process to have been open and proactive, and responsive to the operational concerns raised by consultees.

The continuing need to source contingency accommodation for asylum seekers from hotels, to enable the Home Secretary to discharge her statutory responsibilities under the 1999 Act is substantiated by the evidence of Ms Jones. It is a countervailing consideration of significant weight in determining whether it is appropriate to grant the Claimant’s application for an injunction.

Another countervailing factor which carries some weight is the possible impact on the Defendant. Mr Salmon’s evidence was that the contract with CTM currently provides the Defendant with a secure source of income from the use of the hotel which will assist in funding the investment needed in order to bring it back up to “the required standard for a branded hotel likely to attract guests”. Because the Claimant as local planning authority did not notify the Defendant of their intention to take enforcement action in early August 2025, they deprived themselves of the opportunity to be informed of the financial impact which enforced early cessation of the use of the Bell as contingency accommodation may have on the hotel owner and operator. The significance of the income stream from use of the Bell as asylum accommodation to the longer-term performance of the Bell as a hotel had been clearly made in the Defendant’s covering letter in support of its application for temporary planning permission in February 2023.