Peterborough City Council expects to make decision in weeks on court action to remove asylum seekers from Great Northern Hotel

A decision on taking court action to stop the use of Peterborough’s Great Northern Hotel as a refuge for asylum seekers is expected to be made at the end of the month.

Officials at Peterborough City Council are currently involved in a fact finding exercise as they look to draw up a comprehensive case to show why the 170-year-old hotel in Station Approach is not a suitable place to house asylum seekers.

About 80 asylum seekers were moved into the hotel by the Home Office on November 11.

It was part of a campaign by officials to ease pressures on the Manston processing centre in Kent by moving asylum seekers to hotels across the country.

But the use of the Great Northern was opposed by the council and Peterborough MP Paul Bristow who say it is in inappropriate because of the hotel’s prominence in the city and its proximity to key infrastructure.

It is understood that the failure of any local authority so far to successfully apply to a court to overturn such usage of hotels has prompted the city council to ensure its application contains as much information as possible to support its case.

A council spokesperson, said: "Our planning officers have recently visited the hotel and are in dialogue with the management.

“In light of the judgements for the Ipswich and Hull cases, we are now taking some time to collect information.

“This is in order to demonstrate a material change of use from a hotel to a hostel, and to fully evidence our concerns due to this breach of planning."

Work to collect information will continue until the end of January when a decision will be made about taking court action to enforce planning rules.

Six weeks ago, the council withdraw an application to the High Court for an injunction to stop the use of the Great Northern Hotel for asylum seekers after similar legal appeals by other local authorities to stop the same use of hotels in their areas were all rejected.

The council stated: "In light of the outcomes of similar applications from other councils, which have been previously refused by the High Court, the decision was made to withdraw the application.”