It’s a perfect English town. Now a battle over asylum seekers is ripping it apart

London: Epping Forest is making headlines for all the wrong reasons – and the locals are over it.

Riots have rocked the Essex village for the past two weeks since parents began protesting against a local motel being used to house asylum seekers.

People demonstrate near the Bell Hotel on Sunday in Epping, England.Credit: Getty Images

Now the quiet community – similar to leafy suburbs on the edges of Sydney and Melbourne – is a new flashpoint in a ferocious argument about how to stop asylum seekers crossing the English Channel.

And the protests have escalated since right-wing outsiders – including young men in balaclavas – brought violence to town by throwing bottles and flares at police on Sunday night.

Police officers scuffle with protesters outside the Bell Hotel.Credit: Getty Images

“It was like Vietnam,” says resident Noel Holland, who lives a short walk from the Bell Hotel, which houses about 100 asylum seekers.

Holland, now retired after many years as a detective inspector at Scotland Yard, says the riot on Sunday included a helicopter flying overhead as police tried to disperse a crowd of more than 100.

Like many in this town, he thinks the authorities are wrong to house asylum seekers in communities like this.

“This is a small, close-knit community, and the location of the hotel, so close to two schools, is just inappropriate,” Holland says.

“I’m afraid I agree that the government has got to find some other means of housing the people once they arrive.”

Noel Holland, a retired detective inspector who lives a short walk from the asylum seeker hotel in Epping Forest.Credit: David Crowe

Also like many in this town, he believes the protests are out of control. In his view, the police should be using their powers to arrest anyone trying to hide their identity at the protests.

Six men were arrested on Sunday night for what Essex Police called “mindless thuggery” – including injury to a police officer and damage to a vehicle. Witnesses saw a protester kick in the windscreen of a police car.

Epping, the last stop on the Central Line for those heading north-east on the London Underground, now looks like a war zone to Britons watching the news. But it is a comfortable town with no history of heated division – until the asylum hotel arrived.

At lunchtime on Monday, for instance, the main street was busy with people in a dozen cafes or at an open-air market with arts and crafts. A few Porsches, Mercedes-Benzes and Range Rovers passed along with the local traffic. The jewellery store displayed a Rolex in its front window.

Police officers stand guard near the Bell Hotel as demonstrators gather outside.Credit: Getty Images

But the mood has changed in Epping since one of the asylum seekers was charged with three counts of sexual assault, one count of inciting a girl to engage in sexual activity and one count of harassment without violence.

The man, Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu, 38, from Ethiopia, denied all the offences when he appeared in court on July 10. But this has not quelled concerns among local parents, who began protesting outside the asylum hotel.

“I’m not Far Right. I’m worried about my kids,” read one sign on Sunday, held by parents outside the asylum hotel.

The sexual assault charges turned a tidal wave of concern into a tsunami, says Epping journalist David Jackman, who covered the region for local newspapers for 38 years before setting up his own news site, Everything Epping Forest.

A woman holds a placard during a protest outside the Bell Hotel in Epping, England. Credit: Getty Images

There were at least two fires at asylum hotels in the area in recent years, and one man who was staying at the Bell Hotel will stand trial in September, charged with two counts of arson.

Jackman, in a written account of the past few weeks, said the protest on Sunday night required police with riot shields to hold the line against protesters throwing plastic bottles, eggs, milk and other objects.

“Video footage now seen around the world shows unbelievable scenes, including a protester jumping up and down on the roof of a moving police van, and a man kicking another police vehicle,” he wrote.

In an echo of the Australian debate over the past two decades, Britain is struggling to respond to thousands of people arriving by boat.

While French police can wade into water to try to stop the boats leaving, they do not venture into the English Channel to turn them around. British authorities intercept the boats to escort them to Dover – a sight that infuriates right-wing critics such as Nigel Farage, head of Reform UK.

The arrivals surged to 19,982 in the six months to the end of June – up 50 per cent on the same period last year, according to a tally by Reuters based on government data.

The problem is not new; boat arrivals increased when the Conservatives held power from 2010 to 2024, but it has become toxic in local communities because authorities have taken over hotels and motels to house asylum seekers.

Some Epping residents simply fall silent when the subject comes up. Others express their anxiety about right-wing activists using Epping to make headlines.

Hundreds of people have been protesting at the use of the Bell Hotel in Epping for housing migrants since the arrest of an asylum seeker on suspicion of alleged sexual assaults in the town. Credit: Getty Images

“It is outrageous, irresponsible and preposterous to assert and even suggest that residence [sic] of Epping and Epping Forest were at all violent last night,” wrote Glenn Hernandez, a resident, on the community Facebook group.

He and others want the hotel shut down and the asylum seekers relocated to prevent more clashes.

For now, the Bell Hotel is closed to visitors and surrounded by a temporary fence. Signs order passersby not to take photographs. A security guard stands inside the entrance.

Holland, who lives near the hotel and sees asylum seekers walking to and from their temporary home, believes the protests must be kept away from the Bell Hotel to avoid greater riots in weeks to come.

“There’s no point in protesting outside the hotel,” he says.

“If they’re going to have a protest, have it in the town centre and make it an organised protest to keep the thugs away from the hotel.”

Protesters outside the Bell Hotel on Sunday.Credit: Getty Images

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