Stoke-on-Trent: Injunction over asylum seeker hotel plans

Plans to house asylum seekers in a Stoke-on-Trent hotel have been halted after the council secured an interim High Court injunction.

The authority took legal action on Friday to stop those who were fleeing other countries from being temporarily relocated to the accommodation.

Proposals to aid people from about 50 households follow a government contract with a hotel chain.

A further legal hearing is set to be held on 2 November, the council says.

Conservative-run Stoke-on-Trent City Council complains it has already supported projects to accommodate asylum seekers, and their relocation to hotel accommodation is not an authorised use of such properties.

The Home Office has said previously that while it does not comment on operational arrangements for individual hotels, it is working with councils to find suitable housing.

A spokesperson for the authority told the BBC: "On Friday, the City Council secured an interim injunction at the High Court to restrain the use of a local hotel as a hostel by accommodating asylum seekers."

They said Stoke-on-Trent had "always been a welcoming city" and would "continue to support asylum seekers placed here, and who have no control over where they are housed".

But they added "we do have a responsibility to make sure all properties are used in an authorised way".

Previously, council leader Abi Brown said the plans were unfair when hundreds of refugees had already been resettled in Stoke-on-Trent, and called for other areas to share responsibility.

She also said: "These will be very vulnerable individuals, this is an area of the city where we are concerned about issues around radicalisation and actually we're not sure we could support them in the way other areas do."

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