A hotel in Epping must continue housing asylum seekers after the local council had its appeal dismissed at the High Court.
Epping Forest District Council had tried to block asylum seekers staying at The Bell Hotel by arguing its owner had flouted planning rules.
But on Tuesday, the claim was dismissed by Mr Justice Mould at the High Court, after it was ruled that an injunction was “not an appropriate means of enforcing planning control”.
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Over the summer, the Bell Hotel had become a focal point of anti-migrant protests, after an asylum seeker living there was arrested for sexual offences.
The judge acknowledged that the “criminal behaviour of a small number of individual asylum seekers” staying at the hotel had “raised the fear of crime” among locals.
However, he rejected claims that hotel owner Somani Hotels had shown a “flagrant or persistent abuse of planning control”.
The court also ruled that there was a “continuing need” to house asylum seekers with pending asylum claims, “so that the Home Secretary can fulfil her statutory duties”.