Stradey Park: Injunction bid to 'protect' hotel to house asylum-seekers from protestors adjourned

A judge has adjourned a bid for an injunction to “protect” a four-star hotel earmarked for use by asylum-seekers from protesters after getting mail from people living nearby.

Gryphon Leisure – which owns the Stradey Park Hotel & Spa in Furnace, Llanelli, Dyfed – wanted Judge Roger ter Haar to impose an “urgent interim injunction” in a bid to prevent trespass and obstruction.

Judge ter Haar told a High Court hearing, at the Royal Courts of Justice complex in London, on Tuesday that he had personally received a number of messages from local residents.

The judge said there was “obviously very strong local feeling” and told lawyers that he wanted people who had emailed him to have a chance to attend court and make submissions.

He said lawyers representing the hotel owners should also have a chance to consider residents’ views – and that he aimed to reconsider the case on Thursday.

“I have received a number of emails from local residents,” said Judge ter Haar.

“There is obviously very strong local feeling about the use of the hotel as proposed.”

He added: “The local residents who have written to me are articulate and know about the local concerns.”

Lawyers representing Gryphon had told him that protesters were “opposed” to asylum seekers being “temporarily housed” at the hotel.

They said “protest activity” had begun in early June and told the judge that protesters had held signs displaying “racist and offensive” slogans and waved Union and Welsh flags.

Barrister Jenny Wigley KC, who led Gryphon’s legal team, told the judge the firm wanted an “urgent interim injunction” to “protect” the hotel from the “actions” of protesters “opposed to asylum seekers being temporarily housed there”.

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