Cambridgeshire Council loses bid to stop hotel housing asylum seekers

Council in Cambridgeshire is latest to lose High Court bid to keep asylum seekers out of local hotel

• Fenland District Council brought legal action over plans to use hotels in Wisbech 
• The council raised safety concerns and said it would be a change of planning use
• Mr Justice Holgate dismissed the council’s bid for an injunction against Serco 
• Three other councils have been denied similar injunctions over housing migrants

Another council has lost a High Court bid to stop a hotel being used to house asylum seekers.

Fenland District Council brought legal action over plans to use the Rose and Crown Hotel in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire.

The authority argued it would amount to a change of planning use to a hostel and also raised safety concerns.

The High Court in London heard that 20 people at a time were staying in the three-star hotel, including some from the Manston migrant processing centre in Kent.

Lawyers for the council said Wisbech had ‘significant deprivation’, ‘organised crime’ and a ‘history of migrant exploitation’.

But Mr Justice Holgate yesterday dismissed the council’s bid for an injunction against the hotel’s operators and Home Office contractor Serco.

Three other councils have been denied similar injunctions this month.

FILE PHOTO: A group of people thought to be migrants are pictured. Fenland District Council brought legal action over plans to use the Rose and Crown Hotel in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, but Mr Justice Holgate yesterday dismissed the council’s bid for an injunction against the hotel’s operators

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