The Government does not have a plan to accommodate asylum seekers and did not listen to concerns that they should not be housed at the Bell Hotel, the leader of Epping Forest District Council has said.Chris Whitbread, who also leads the Conservative group at the Essex authority, said that failures to improve the system for processing asylum applications were also causing distress "up and down the country".

The Government does not have a plan to accommodate asylum seekers and did not listen to concerns that they should not be housed at the Bell Hotel, the leader of Epping Forest District Council has said.Chris Whitbread, who also leads the Conservative group at the Essex authority, said that failures to improve the system for processing asylum applications were also causing distress "up and down the country".