{"id":478356,"date":"2026-03-16T09:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T09:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/478356\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T09:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T09:16:10","slug":"epping-council-considered-evacuating-homes-due-to-asylum-protests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/478356\/","title":{"rendered":"Epping council considered evacuating homes due to asylum protests"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Responding to the BBC&#8217;s story, the council spokeswoman said the safety of people living by The Bell Hotel was a top priority.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Had we been asked to provide temporary accommodation, we would have done so,&#8221; she said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Thankfully, it did not prove necessary, but we felt it important to make the Home Office aware of the concerns raised with us.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The emails were obtained via a Freedom of Information request made by the BBC, and also showed how senior staff reacted to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c3vdeekq031o\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kebatu&#8217;s arrest<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">They were informed of it in an email, headed &#8220;Bell Hotel Incident&#8221;, which was sent by directorate specialist Caroline Wiggins at 08:26 BST on 9 July.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Obviously, I don&#8217;t have to say the ramifications of this incident if it is picked up could be very serious,&#8221; she wrote.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Small replied: &#8220;Oh no! Good that he was apprehended quickly, but will justify and support for the view held by some in the community.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Responding to the BBC&#8217;s story, the council spokeswoman said the safety of people living by The Bell Hotel&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-478356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}