[2025] EWCA Civ 1134

The Council were aware by February 2025 that the Bell was once again being used to house asylum seekers. By its letter of 15 May 2025 Somani made clear that it had been advised by the Home Office that a planning application was unnecessary. The Council took no steps in response whether by issuing an enforcement notice or otherwise. There was no threat of court proceedings - indeed no communication of any kind to Somani – until, nearly three months later, on Monday 11 August 2025, an application with 1600 pages of supporting material, supported by a detailed skeleton argument prepared by leading and junior counsel, was served on an individual employee of Somani giving 3 working days’ notice (the bare minimum under the Rules for even a less weighty application) of a hearing for which 4 hours had been allocated. That application shows signs of careful preparation of a mass of material. We are told that the decision to proceed was taken on Tuesday 5 August. Certainly a letter before claim should have been sent then at the latest. We cannot agree that the judge was entitled to find that there had been no delay by the Council which weighed against the grant of urgent interim relief.

The tactics used on the Council’s behalf were not only procedurally unfair to Somani, but ought to have reinforced the argument that the delay was a significant factor in the balance against interim relief.

As we have noted, Mr Green submitted forcefully that there was no relevant delay by the Council because they were entitled to change their mind in the light of the protests starting on 11 July. We have already indicated our view that the outbreak of protests should not have been regarded as a factor in favour of the grant of an interim planning injunction.