But others like Sara and Jan Russell, out for a brisk summer walk, supported the council’s High Court action.
“I’m all for it. I’ve lived here for over 50 years now. We’ve never seen anything like this.
“It’s not right, nobody likes it,” said Jan Russell.
Sara Russell added: “It’s about time these asylum seekers did just go.
“We are such a small town – we can’t really afford to have that sort of people walking up and down the street.”
She said she saw the asylum seekers “just dossing around” in the town.
They had not been involved in the protests, but they supported them.
Although, said Sara Russell, not “when people are coming off the Central line from the other side of London and are just pretending to be from the local area”.
“There’s a very small percentage of people who are protesters from Epping town,” she added.
She said she had “nothing against the legal migrants” but when it came to those arriving by boat across the Channel, her answer was to “put them on Ascension island”.