EAST RIDING OF YORKSHIRE: Hotel injunction hearing delayed
The hearing is now due to be held tomorrow
East Riding Council’s High Court bid to get an injunction stopping asylum seekers being housed in a North Ferriby hotel has been delayed until tomorrow (Tuesday, November 8).
The Royal Courts of Justice hearing on the use of North Ferriby’s Humber View Hotel as accommodation for asylum seekers was due to be held today (Monday, November 7).
The hearing is now due to be held tomorrow and is set to see East Riding Council argue that it would amount to a change of use of the hotel which requires planning permission.
It comes after the council first took out a temporary injunction against the Home Office plans under the Town and Country Planning Act on Friday, October 28.
The hearing tomorrow seeks to stop any of the five parties named in the injunction from using the hotel, in Ferriby High Road, for temporary asylum seeker accommodation.
The listed defendants are Humber View managers LGH Hotels, housing group Mears which runs temporary accommodation for the Home Office, and three other companies.
The High Court hearing comes after it dismissed a bid from Stoke on Trent City Council to stop a hotel being used there.
The authority unsuccessfully deployed the same legal argument the East Riding plans to use.
Reservations at the hotel, including wedding parties and other functions, were cancelled at short notice when the plans were first announced.
Customers were also unable to book rooms at the hotel from the day after the injunction was served.
People would be housed in the hotel while waiting for their asylum claims to be processed amid mounting backlogs in dealing with applications.
Politicians including Conservative Cllr Julie Abraham and Liberal Democrat Cllr Margaret Corless, both of South Hunsley ward, have since spoken out against the plans.
Both said the hotel was too far away from shops and other facilities and locals felt they had not been properly consulted.
Conservative Haltemprice and Howden MP David Davis said the Home Office’s failure to notify local MPs was unacceptable and wholly inappropriate.
The Home Office said record numbers of asylum seekers had put incredible strain on the immigration system and hotels were being used as a short-term solution.
A spokesperson for the Government department declined to comment on the High Court hearing.
The spokesperson said: “The use of hotels to house asylum seekers is unacceptable, there are currently more than 37,000 asylum seekers in hotels costing the UK taxpayer £5.6m a day.
“The use of hotels is a short-term solution and we are working hard with local authorities to find appropriate accommodation.”