Breach of planning control — Unlawful use of agricultural land — Injunction granted ex parte restraining residential use in public interest — Caravans moved onto site in breach of court order — Prohibitory injunction suspended until determination of planning application — Whether judge properly exercising discretion to suspend injunction — Appeal allowed
The first defendant was a member of an extended family of gypsies. With the financial help of other family members, he purchased green-belt agricultural land within a designated area of great landscape value. On the eve of a holiday weekend, the appellant council’s head of planning services was alerted to the fact that topsoil was being removed from the land and hardcore was being laid. Following an inspection, the appellants obtained an ex parte injunction restraining the respondents from causing or permitting entry onto the land of any caravan, mobile home or other form of residential accommodation and from using the land for residential purposes. At that time, no caravans or mobile homes were sited on the land. The respondents did not apply to discharge or vary the application.
In breach of the court order, the respondents moved their caravans and their families, including young children, onto the land. The appellants applied, under section 187B of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, for a final injunction restraining the respondents from using the land for residential purposes. This injunction was granted, but the judge suspended it until after the determination of the first respondent’s application for a change of use to a gypsy residential site, which had been made retrospectively.
The appellants appealed to the Court of Appeal. The issue was whether, in the circumstances, the court was entitled to interfere with the judge’s exercise of his discretion on the appropriateness of suspending the injunction while the planning application was pending.
Held: The appeal was allowed.
The judge’s decision to suspend the injunction pending the determination of the planning application did not take proper account of the vital role of the court in upholding the important principle that orders of the court were meant to be obeyed, and not ignored with impunity.
The order indicated the correct way of challenging the injunction, expressly giving the respondents liberty to apply, on prior notice, to discharge or modify the order. If the respondents had wished to challenge the order, the proper course would have been to apply to the court for a discharge or variation. If that had failed, they should then have sought to appeal. Rather than following the correct procedure, the respondents decided to proceed as originally planned, as though the court order had not been made. This had been done in order to steal a march on the appellants and to achieve the state of affairs that the order was designed to prevent. No explanation or apology for the breaches of the order had been offered to the court.
The practical effect of suspending the injunction had been to allow the respondents to change the use of the land and to retain the benefit of its occupation for residential purposes, in defiance of a court order that had been properly served and correctly explained. In the circumstances, the suspension of the injunction could be perceived as condoning the breach. That would diminish respect for court orders, undermine the authority of the courts and subvert the rule of law. Those overarching public interest considerations far outweighed the factors that favoured a suspension of the injunction.
David Elvin QC and James Maurici (instructed by Mills & Reeve, of Cambridge) appeared for the appellants; Patrick Hamlin (instructed by Paul Grommett & Co) appeared for the respondents.
Eileen O’Grady, barrister
