Borough council defeats bid to vary injunction over mobile home site

Ashford Borough Council has defeated an attempt to challenge an injunction it secured in March against a group of people who had unlawfully created a mobile home site.

HHJ Richard Parkes QC upheld the injunction and also refused an application by one defendant to vary it to allow temporary residential use, saying this would “subvert the rule of law” and would “send out a message that the court is prepared to tolerate defiance of the law”.

The case against seven named defendants and ‘persons unknown’ involved land at High Halden, Kent.

Ashford in March secured an injunction to prevent the defendants from using the land or carrying out works in breach of planning control, including stationing any caravan or mobile home for residential use.

In his judgment, HHJ Parkes noted: “The order was made to prevent apprehended breaches of planning control, in accordance with s187B of the Town & Country Planning Act 1990. It seems to have been completely ignored.

“Hardstanding and a roadway were constructed, a timber building was erected, septic tanks were installed, and several residential caravans came onto and remain on the land.”

The judge notde the injunction had been granted after council officers observed substantial works in progress at the site despite a stop notice having been served.

Occupation of the land for residential purposes had never been lawful and it “strains credulity” for any of the defendants to have believed otherwise, the judge said.

One defendant sought to vary the injunction to allow her and her family to remain on the land until their planning applications have been fully determined.

The judge accepted that she and her children would suffer hardship unless the order were varied, but said they would only be in the same position as before they entered the site.

Given the history of decisions on the site, the judge said he saw no real prospect of planning permission for residential use being granted.

Allowing the variation sought would mean some defendants would be able to use the site for residential purposes when they had “no legal right to bring mobile homes onto the land in the first place and when there was a court order in place preventing the use of the land for such purposes”.

The judge concluded: “There must be a real risk that the variation of the injunction would send out a message that the court is prepared to tolerate defiance of the law and breach of court orders, by permitting those responsible to profit from their behaviour…the effect of that message would be to diminish respect for court orders, to undermine the authority of the court and to subvert the rule of law.”