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

The Claimant’s case is that until 2020, the Bell had been used for many years, indeed several centuries, as a hotel. There is said to be evidence that the celebrated diarist, Samuel Pepys, may have stayed at the Bell during the seventeenth century. However, during 2020 the Bell ceased to be used as a hotel. Instead, the Defendant entered into arrangements for its use to provide accommodation for asylum seekers and refugees. It has been so used since that date. There have been three periods of active use for that purpose. The first ran between 22 May 2020 and 4 March 2021. The second ran between October 2022 and 26 April 2024. The third period began in early April 2025 and continues to this day.

It is not in dispute that the very long-established use of the Bell as a hotel prior to 2020 was lawful for planning purposes. It was lawful because it had been in existence prior to the appointed day, 1 July 1948 and had continued thereafter: see schedule 24, paragraph 12 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971, which remains in effect by virtue of schedule 3, paragraph 3 of the Planning (Consequential Provisions) Act 1990.

The Claimant contends that since 2020 the Defendant has changed the use of the Bell from use as a hotel to an institutional use to provide accommodation for asylum seekers. The Claimant says that the change in the use of the Bell since 2020 is material for two principal reasons. Firstly, there are said to be considerable differences between the attributes of the current use of the Bell and those which characterised its former use as a hotel. Secondly, it is said that the current use of the Bell to accommodate asylum seekers is having and will continue to have serious and harmful impacts on local amenity. In the claim form, the Claimant identifies the following specific matters –

The Claimant contends that these matters demonstrate that the use of the Bell as a location for the provision of accommodation for asylum seekers is inappropriate in planning terms. Reliance is placed on the location of the Bell in close proximity to five schools, a residential home and the shops and amenities of the market town of Epping.

The Claimant says that the current use of the Bell to accommodate asylum seekers constitutes development and requires planning permission. Planning permission has not been granted. In the absence of planning permission, the current use of the Bell is in breach of planning control and liable to enforcement action under Part 7 of the 1990 Act. The Claimant considers it to be both necessary and expedient for that breach of planning control to be restrained by injunction, in the exercise of the powers conferred on the court by section 187B of the 1990 Act.

As local planning authority, the Claimant is responsible both for development control decision making under Part 3 and for enforcing planning control under Part 7 of the 1990 Act. The Claimant operates executive arrangements under Part 1A of the Local Government Act 2000. By virtue of regulation 2 of and schedule 1 to the Local Authorities (Functions and Responsibilities)(England) Regulations 2000, the functions of development control decision making and enforcing planning control, including the power to apply for an injunction under section 187B of the 1990 Act, are not to be the responsibility of the Claimant’s executive, the Cabinet. Under the Claimant’s constitution, those functions are delegated to the Claimant’s planning committees and officers pursuant to Part 6 of the Local Government Act 1972.

In particular, the local planning authority’s power to apply for an injunction under section 187B of the 1990 Act is delegated under the Claimant’s Scheme of Delegation to the Claimant’s Legal Services Manager. The current holder of that office is Ms Nicola Sayers. It was Ms Sayers who made the decision to bring this claim. She took that decision on 5 August 2025.