John Goss appears for Home Secretary in major asylum accommodation judicial review

The question of where asylum seekers should be accommodated has been a prominent and complex issue in recent months. Alongside litigation about hotel-based provision, some local authorities have raised concerns about the number of asylum seekers placed in longer-term ‘dispersal’ housing. Following the temporary opening of an additional hotel for asylum accommodation in Coventry in November 2024, Coventry City Council brought a judicial review challenging the Secretary of State for the Home Department’s continued placement of asylum seekers in the city across both dispersal and hotel settings. The wide-ranging and systemic claim alleged illegality on grounds including irrationality, misuse of statutory purpose under Padfield, substantive and procedural legitimate expectations, unjustified departure from policy, and breach of the public sector equality duty.

After a two-day hearing in July 2025, at which John Goss argued a number of the grounds for the Secretary of State, Mr Justice Eyre dismissed the claim in full on 14 November 2025. The judgment emphasises that although public law imposes limits on how the Secretary of State may allocate asylum accommodation, those constraints operate within the framework of her statutory duties and the practical challenges of managing the national system. On the facts, there was no illegality in her approach to accommodating asylum seekers in Coventry.

Eyre J’s decision – R (Coventry City Council) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWHC 2929 (Admin) – is likely to be an important reference point for future public law disputes concerning the placement of asylum accommodation. It also resolves long-standing uncertainty over the ‘1:200’ ratio applied in this field, holding that it is not an absolute limit.

John acted for the Secretary of State, led by Paul Brown KC of Landmark Chambers. As well as immigration and asylum, John’s public law practice covers human rights, information law, law enforcement and the criminal justice system, and counter-terrorism and national security.

The judgment is available on the Judiciary.uk website.