Background
West Berkshire District Council obtained an interim injunction in December 2025 after development began on land near AWE Aldermaston without planning permission and continued despite a Temporary Stop Notice. The order prohibited residential occupation, additional structures, and specified items from being brought onto the land, while expressly permitting the family of John Jude O’Brien already living on Plots 7-8 to remain.
Numerous families subsequently occupied at least 22 pitches. The represented defendants sought to vary the injunction so that they could remain while pursuing planning approval, contending that many families had occupied the land before the injunction and that their Article 8 rights had not been considered. The Council maintained that only the O’Brien family was resident when the order was served and that all later occupation breached the injunction.
The Court’s Holding
The High Court refused to vary the injunction and held that its existing terms should continue. After assessing witness testimony, photographs, planning documents, and other evidence, the court found that only the John Jude O’Brien family occupied the land when the injunction was served on 19 December 2025. It rejected the other defendants’ accounts of earlier occupation as unsupported and inconsistent with the Council’s evidence showing a muddy construction site containing largely unoccupied caravans.
Continuing the injunction was just and proportionate under section 187B of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. The defendants’ deliberate occupation in breach of a court order weighed heavily against them, and neither Article 8 nor the interests of resident children justified allowing noncompliance to secure an advantage. The court also noted, without deciding the planning merits, the serious emergency-planning concerns arising from the land’s location within the Detailed Emergency Planning Zone around AWE Aldermaston.
The judge was minded to allow 28 days from judgment for every resident except the O’Brien family on Plots 7-8 to leave. That period was not yet final: the parties were permitted to make short written submissions, with a later ruling to determine the departure deadline, provisionally expected to be 5 October 2026.
Key Takeaways
- Defendants cannot create a new residential status quo by deliberately occupying land in breach of an injunction and then rely on the resulting hardship to obtain a variation.
- Article 8 rights and children’s best interests remain part of the proportionality analysis, but they do not automatically override the public interest in planning enforcement and obedience to court orders.
- A newcomer injunction against persons unknown may continue where its justification is compelling, its scope is sufficiently precise, and adequate notice and procedural safeguards are provided.
Why It Matters
The decision underscores the High Court’s willingness to preserve planning injunctions where later occupation appears designed to defeat their purpose. Courts will examine personal hardship independently, but deliberate and continuing breach can carry decisive weight in the proportionality balance.
It also illustrates the importance of reliable evidence when occupation dates determine the scope of an injunction. Unsupported statements and purchase receipts did not outweigh contemporaneous site inspections and photographs, while nuclear-site emergency-planning concerns supplied additional context without becoming a judicial determination of the planning application’s merits.