Landowner challenges injunction that leaves site ‘worthless’

A businessman who specialises in buying land to create gypsy and traveller sites has launched an appeal against a ruling that he says bars him from accessing a field he owns in Ripley, Surrey, and leaves it worthless. In December 2010, Field J granted an injunction barring Felix Cash and a number of gypsies and travellers from accessing Cash’s site, finding that he had been guilty of a “flagrant trespass” in bringing lorry-loads of hardcore onto the site in order to turn it into a caravan site without planning permission. The judge found that this was a misuse of the only access road to the site, the right of way over which is restricted to agricultural use. The injunction has been enforced by Ashdale Land and Property Co Ltd, owner of the nearby 6 West End Cottages and the access road to Cash’s land, which has blocked entry using 2 metre high concrete blocks. However, Cash claims that the injunction goes too far and effectively denies him access to his land, rendering it worthless. He argues that he has not used the access road unlawfully since December 2009, when the hardstanding was brought onto the land day and night to create multiple caravan plots. He argues that he has been punished for the subsequent behaviour of gypsies and travellers who moved on to the site until March 2010, and that the injunction prevents him from lawful agricultural use of the land. He is asking the Court of Appeal to overturn Field J’s decision and lift the injunction. The court has reserved its decision in order to give it in writing at a later date. In his judgment last year, Field J said that Cash was an “experienced businessman” who bought the land, undertook work to convert it to a caravan site, and then hoped to present it to the local authority as a “fait accompli” in order to secure planning permission. He said: “In completing the transaction as he did, he took a calculated risk that planning consent would be forthcoming and that the owner of the right of way could be persuaded to enlarge the right. That gamble has seriously back-fired.”