King's / Queen's Bench Division of the High Court

KB-2025-002908 - [2025] EWHC 2937 (KB)

Fecha: 11-Nov-2025

Whether an injunction is an appropriate remedy – the correct approach

Whether an injunction is an appropriate remedy – the correct approach

206.

I propose to approach the question whether it is appropriate to grant an injunction on the Claimant’s application in accordance with the authoritative guidance given by Simon Brown LJ which received endorsement of the House of Lords in South Bucks. I gratefully adopt Holgate J’s helpful summary at [93] in Ipswich of the principles and guidance which are to be drawn from [38]-[42] of Simon Brown LJ’s judgment in the Court of Appeal in South Bucks –

(1)

The need to enforce planning control in the general interest is a relevant consideration and in that context the planning history of the site may be important. The “degree and flagrancy” of the breach of planning may be critical. Where conventional enforcement measures have failed over a prolonged period the court may be more ready to grant an injunction. The court may be more reluctant where enforcement action has never been taken.

(2)

On the other hand, there might be urgency in the situation sufficient to justify the avoidance of an anticipated breach of planning control.

(3)

An anticipatory interim injunction may sometimes be preferable to a delayed permanent injunction, for example, where stopping a gypsy moving on to a site in the first place, may involve less hardship than moving him out after a long period of occupation.

(4)

While it is not for the court to question the correctness of planning decisions which have been taken (e.g. decisions to refuse a planning permission or to dismiss an appeal), the court should come to a broad view as to the degree of environmental damage resulting from the breach and the urgency or otherwise of bringing it to an end.

(5)

The achievement of the legitimate aim of preserving the environment does not always outweigh countervailing rights (or factors). Injunctive relief is unlikely to be granted unless it is a “commensurate” remedy in the circumstances of the case.

(6)

It is the court’s task to strike the balance between competing interests, weighing one against the other.

207.

The second and third of those principles are of less direct relevance to the present case, given that the use of the Bell as accommodation for asylum seekers had resumed in early April 2025, some four months prior to the Claimant’s decision as local planning authority in early August 2025 that enforcement action in the form of an application for an injunction pursuant to section 187B of the 1990 was necessary or expedient. The four remaining principles are relevant and provide a general framework for my decision whether the grant of an injunction to restrain the continuing use of the Bell for that purpose is appropriate, or in the language of section 37 of the Senior Courts Act 1981, just and convenient. I accept that the Claimant found there to have been a change of circumstances in July 2025 which created a need for an urgent response. That aspect of the case falls to be considered in the context of the fourth principle stated above.