Highway — Unoccupied land — Travellers — Unlawful encampment — Competing interest of travellers and local residents — Applications to quash removal directions — Court holding that local authority must balance competing interests — Removal direction applicable only to those on land when direction made
In each of these cases a local authority, in the exercise of their powers to remove unauthorised travellers under section 77 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 gave removal directions to the applicant travellers, who in each case were unlawfully encamped on land in the locality and had sought and obtained from the local justices removal orders against those who had not by then left.
The first application related to a section of the highway in Grantham, Lincolnshire, known as Ermine Street. By the date of the making of the removal directions on June 2, 1995, no contact had been made with the persons unlawfully encamped on the land and no information had been obtained about who they were, their situation or needs. It was following the exercise of the notice of the removal direction and the failure of all those affected to leave that, from June 5 onwards, inquiries and negotiations were made about the individuals on the site. At the same time complaints from local residents and farmers were coming in through a number of organs of the local authorities. The other two applications related to a removal direction to all occupants of vehicles on land known as Phie Forest Garden, Crowborough, East Sussex. In each the applicants sought to have the removal directions quashed.
Held The Wealden applications were allowed. The Lincolnshire application was refused.
1. An important element in the discretionary powers given to local authorities was to a duty to think about both travellers and local residents and to strike a responsible balance under conflicting needs.
2. A removal direction under section 77 could apply only to persons on the land at the time when the direction was made and so could be contravened only by such persons.
3. By the date when they gave a removal direction Lincolnshire County Council had undertaken no meaningful inquiries into the situation and possible needs of the person to whom the direction would apply. At that stage they had failed in their elementary duty to take reasonable steps to acquire relevant information. Subsequent inquiries were proper and sufficient to discharge the obligation to do so.
4. In the Wealden case the inquiries made and the evaluative exercise undertaken by the council in the aftermath of the making of the removal order which brought into full and proper consideration those matters relevant to the material decision-making process.
5. As with Lincolnshire, none of this was done before a decision to give a removal direction was taken; and, unlike Lincolnshire, Wealden District Council continued to ignore those considerations until after they had obtained a removal order from the justices.
6. It was at the initial stage of deciding whether to give a removal direction that it was necessary for the local authority to consider the relationship of its proposed action on the various statutory and humanitarian considerations which could be called into place.
David Watkinson (instructed by Firth Lindsay, of Sheffield) appeared for the applicant, Atkinson; Patrick Ground QC (instructed by the solicitor to Lincolnshire County Council) appeared for the county council; Colin Hutchinson (instructed by Firth Lindsay, of Sheffield) appeared for the applicants, Wales and Stratford; Richard Langham (instructed by the solicitor to Wealden District Council) appeared for the district council.
