Designated protest areas are directly opposite the Bell Hotel ‘and will have their own designated entry and exit routes’, the assistant chief constable added. There will also be sites near the Civic Centre, and he said ‘if you move from the Bell Hotel to the Civic Centre, you will not be able to return’.

Asylum seekers must be removed from a hotel in Epping, the Essex Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner has insisted after days of angry protests. Roger Hirst wrote to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, warning that the Bell Hotel was “unsuitable” for housing migrants and insisting their presence was “clearly creating community tension”.