Planning Injunctions

The grant of an interim injunction can often be a quick and effective way of pre-empting or terminating a breach of planning control.  Several Landmark barristers have considerable experience of obtaining and enforcing injunctions on behalf of local authorities under planning and related powers, and in particular of –

• Obtaining urgent without notice negative injunctions, including against persons unknown;
• Drafting reports authorising injunction proceedings, so as to avoid collateral challenges;
• In relation to applications for positive injunctions, drafting evidence to address issues raised in South Bucks v Porter, the public sector equality duty, Article 8 ECHR and the best interests of children;
• Obtaining borough/district wide planning injunctions and injunctions protecting all land in an authority’s ownership;
• Deciding between use of an injunction and direct action under s178;
• Enforcing injunctions by proceedings under CPR r. 70.2A and by committal proceedings.

Barristers have successfully acted in many recent notorious claims, including the claims for injunctions to prevent interference with the felling of highway trees in Sheffield, to prevent the occupation by gypsy caravans of areas of Green Belt in Basildon, to require the demolition of Mr Fidler’s notorious mock-Tudor castle in Reigate, to terminate the ‘Occupy’ protest outside St Paul’s Cathedral, an injunction to demolish a £1m rear garden “man cave” (Forest of Dean DC v Wildin [2018] EWHC 2811 (QB)), and North York Moors National Park Authority v Bohlin [2019] EWHC 1142 (Ch).