Judgment reserved in council asylum seeker airfield injunction case

A High Court judge has reserved judgment following a hearing yesterday (19 April) regarding Braintree District Council's application for an injunction against Home Office proposals to accommodate asylum seekers at Wethersfield Airfield.

Before Mr Justice Waksman, the council challenged the Home Office's reliance on permitted development rights (Class Q) to avoid the need for planning permission for the site.

Class Q is set out in Part 19 of Schedule 2 to the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015 and relates to development by the Crown for the purposes of preventing an emergency or in response to an emergency.

The council launched the legal challenge last month immediately following the Home Office's announcement of the plans.

Braintree said it believes the airfield to be an unsuitable site due to an alleged lack of capacity in local services, the site's isolated location, the size of the site and "the fact that the scale of the development proposed could have a significant adverse impact upon the local community".

The Home Office agreed not to move asylum seekers onto the site until the courts have made a decision in regard to the injunction.

Adam Carey