A police boss has demanded an urgent meeting with Yvette Cooper on Monday to seek the closure of the Epping asylum hotel at the centre of recent protests. Roger Hirst, the police and crime commissioner for Essex, said The Bell Hotel was an inappropriate location for asylum seekers and was costing his force “hundreds of thousands of pounds” in officer overtime to police the protests.
He said:“The Bell is not the right place for a hotel for asylum seekers. It’s in the middle of a home counties market town and these are people who have a very different life experience arriving there. There are schools in the vicinity as well. It is not the right place.” Speaking to The Telegraph, he added: “It’s costing hundreds of thousands of pounds. It’s a lot of police overtime. This is not what we need to be happening on a regular basis in the town. It’s a diversion of resources from what police officers should be doing.
Hundreds of officers from Essex, the Metropolitan Police and forces across England were deployed on Sunday to police about 1,000 protesters who converged on the hotel.
Essex imposed restrictions on the protests that required pro and anti-migrant groups to be separated on designated sites and banned anyone from wearing face coverings.
A dispersal order runs from 12pm on Sunday until 8am on Monday, covering Epping town centre and nearby transport hubs. It gives officers the power to remove anyone suspected of anti-social behaviour.
The Bell has become a target for protests after a resident Ethiopian asylum seeker was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old schoolgirl days after arriving in the UK. Ten people have been arrested after violence flared 10 days ago.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader and Essex MP, and Chris Whitbread, the Epping council leader, who said it had become a “focus and battleground” for extremist groups.
Epping council has unanimously voted for the Bell Hotel to be “immediately and permanently” closed “for the purposes of asylum processing”.
Mrs Badenoch said she agreed with one of her MPs Neil Hudson who said the hotel should be shut down.
“Yes, I do agree with Neil Hudson. This is something that I as an Essex MP, have also stated, I gave an interview earlier this week where I said that those people who are protesting are having legitimate protest,” she told Sky News.