At 2pm today the High Court is due to decide on an appeal against the Bell Hotel injunction after Epping Council successfully argued the hotel’s use breached planning laws.
With planning central to this debate (which as the last week has shown, is obscured by politics and protest), below, Faraz Baber, chief operating officer of planning consultancy Lanpro offers a rational view on the asylum housing crisis and asserts that planning tools and expertise is necessary to revolving it. Planning is central to the solution, he says, but has been almost entirely overlooked.
Baber argues that planning is the missing voice in the asylum debate. The crisis is ultimately a built environment issue, bringing a much-needed evidence-based, rational perspective needed in what has become an increasingly emotive debate.
PRACTICAL SOLUTIONS
There are credible, practical solutions available. From reusing surplus student accommodation and vacant schools, to converting underused commercial property or modular housing that can later serve as affordable homes, planning can turn reactive fixes into strategic, long-term assets.
Additionally, a national strategy is required: ad hoc reliance on hotels, hostels or military sites has proved inadequate.
Planning can help distribute provision more fairly, align asylum housing with wider regeneration objectives, and ensure communities are engaged rather than sidelined.
WHY PLANNING MUST BE PART OF THE ASYKUM DEBATE
The built environment holds solutions to the crisis – but planning voices are absent
At the root of the debate over asylum accommodation is not only politics but questions relating to land and buildings. In other words, planning will be critical in resolving the current problems. And yet, strikingly, planning expertise has been almost absent from the national conversation.
Search online for comments from the professional planning bodies or even the Secretary of State for Planning on how we house asylum seekers, and you will find very little. This silence is surprising. Because the role of planning is absolutely central to addressing shortages of land, the use of buildings and balancing competing needs.
Planning is wrongly caricatured as bureaucratic or reactive. In truth it is about balance and rational, evidence-based decision-making. These are precisely the qualities required in a debate that has become increasingly polarised and emotive.
Why planning matters
Housing asylum seekers has brought into focus the interface between planning and property law, both as a short term and long term solution. Hotels, often used under Section 98 support (at least until, according to a recent commitment, the government closes these hotels by May 2029), fall into a particular Planning Use Class (C1). Yet when their use shifts towards longer-term occupation, the law requires a change of use to a hostel, which is categorised as sui generis. At the heart of the hotel debate (as seen last week in the case of the Bell Hotel), therefore, is a planning issue.
Property law is also key to the potential to use houses, flats and shared accommodation (used under Section 95 support). Here the proposed Renters’ Rights Bill, which prevents landlords evicting tenants to make way for new occupants, already has implications for how asylum seekers might be housed in the private rented sector.
Put simply, many of the decisions that appear political are, in fact, a matter for planning and broader property law.
The missing perspective
Planning also brings something more intangible but equally important: perspective. Planners are trained to think spatially and strategically. They analyse demographic change, land supply, infrastructure capacity and social impact. They weigh up how uses interact, and how best to achieve balance between communities.
This kind of thinking is urgently needed. The asylum housing crisis has often been managed reactively, with temporary fixes that trigger resentment and undermine trust. The absence of planning voices in the debate means we are missing the profession most able to mediate between central government directives and local realities.
A call for rationality
This is not to argue that planning alone can solve the asylum housing crisis. But it is to argue that without the profession’s involvement, solutions will be less effective and more divisive.
Planning can identify underused land, assess whether communities have the schools and healthcare capacity to cope with additional residents, and advise on the risks of concentrating too much provision in one area. Planning can help ensure that asylum seekers are not left isolated in unsuitable locations, and that local communities feel engaged rather than ignored.
At its best, planning is about long-term, sustainable thinking and creative problem-solving. That is what this crisis needs. Politicians may make the headlines, but planners hold many of the answers.
