Ban on Wolverhampton's Quality Hotel hosting asylum seekers was right, say top judges
Council bosses in Wolverhampton were right to ban a city hotel from hosting asylum seekers, High Court judges have said.
The authority took action after receiving information that the Quality Hotel was due to accommodate asylum seekers at its site in Tettenhall Road. The tip-off said 100 asylum seekers were on their way to the hotel.
Hotel bosses issued a judicial review challenge to the ban, but now the High Court has dismissed the company's arguments, ruling that the council was right all along.
At a hearing on Monday, the High Court heard that the authority took action after receiving a tip-off that the asylum seekers were on their way.
The owners of the Quality Hotel were informed that they did not have planning consent to run a hostel for would-be refugees.
And the council did not hang about after receiving intelligence that security giants, G4S, were about to deliver bus loads of asylum seekers to the hotel.
Sandon Investments Ltd, which owns the hotel, insisted that asylum seekers are no different from any hotel guests and that no planning permission was needed.
The company also said that it was only intending to rent out 22 of its 38 rooms to asylum seekers and only about 40 of them were expected.
But, in October last year, the council issued a 'temporary stop notice', banning the hotel's use as a hostel on pain of criminal prosecution.
The council said there was "already an overly high concentration" of hostels and houses in multiple occupation in Wolverhampton.
It said it feared the consequences of such a large number of "institutionalised and vulnerable" people hitting the town's streets.
It could damage "cohesiveness" in the neighbourhood and lead to "an oppressive atmosphere in the local area".
And the council said the arrival of such a large influx of asylum seekers would only feed "an inherent fear of crime and anti-social behaviour in the locality".
Mr Justice Coulson said Sandon had taken a "surprisingly aggressive" approach to the council's claims that it needed planning permission.
It said the council's concerns were "massively misplaced" and accused Wolverhampton of interfering in its lawful business.
And, after the council issued the stop notice, the hotel's operators - Carespec Limited - issued a judicial review challenge.
Dismissing the company's arguments, however, Mr Justice Coulson ruled that the council was right all along.
Asylum seekers were "conventionally housed in hostels" and the influx would see strangers sharing rooms in a way which would "not be countenanced" by a hotel guest.
Their rooms at the hotel would be their only homes and a modest rate of £35-a-day for bed and breakfast also indicated the plan was to use the hotel as a hostel.
The asylum seekers, the judge added, would have "no connection or link with the area at all".
There could, he ruled, be no challenge to the "rationality" of the council's stance that planning permission was needed.
Condemning Carespec's challenge as "misconceived", the judge underlined that judicial review is a legal remedy of last resort.
The company could instead have simply sought planning permission or a certificate recognising that housing asylum seekers in the hotel was lawful.
Alternatively it could have sought compensation for any damage to its business under the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004.
Mr Justice Coulson added that the temporary stop notice had in any event expired before the case got to court.
Council leader Councillor Roger Lawrence, who is also chair of the West Midlands Strategic Migration Partnership, welcomed the verdict.
He said: "The verdict from the High Court fully supports the tough stance the council has taken on this matter.
"Whilst we recognise that asylum seeker numbers are at unprecedented levels nationally and that the Home Office are looking to disperse people around the country to relieve the pressure on London, we don't believe that hotel accommodation – even on a temporary basis – is appropriate.
"Hotel accommodation is wholly unsuitable. It fails to meet the often very complex needs of large numbers of vulnerable people. Asylum seekers need to be treated properly and this means giving much greater consideration to social facilities and the wider support network that's required. Simply dumping vulnerable people like these in local hotels isn't an acceptable position to me or the council.
"On behalf of the West Midlands Strategic Migration Partnership, I will be raising my concerns at the highest level in Government."
