Sheering Mill Lane Sawbridgeworth: Work Defies Injunction

East Herts Council obtained a High Court injunction on Saturday night to stop unauthorised building work on land off Sheering Mill Lane in Sawbridgeworth, about four miles south of Bishop’s Stortford. By Sunday afternoon the council said the work was still going on.

The council has set out the sequence on a dedicated page, last updated at 2.20pm on Sunday 30 August. It says it learned of the works early on Saturday 29 August after reports from residents, and found heavy vehicles and construction equipment on the site. The land has no planning permission.

Two things happened that day:

• a Temporary Stop Notice was served shortly after 10.45am
• a High Court injunction was secured and served on site at about 10.30pm

The council has published the full injunction order, all fourteen pages of it, including the note of the hearing itself. That is unusual, and it is the document worth reading rather than the summary.

What the order actually bans

The interim order was made by Mr Justice Coppel in the King’s Bench Division on 29 August, under section 187B of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. It covers the land on the south west side of Sheering Mill Lane, registered under title HD418207.

The defendants are two classes of persons unknown, plus two named individuals. This newspaper does not name them: no allegation against any of them has been tested, and the return hearing has not yet taken place.

Until the hearing, the order bars anyone covered by it from doing any of the following on the land without the council’s written permission:

• carrying out any further development, or clearing any more land
• laying hardstanding, bitumen or gravel
• erecting fencing or gates, or building a road
• creating any further access to the land
• removing or damaging any hedgerow
• installing any camera or CCTV equipment
• bringing on, keeping or using plant or machinery capable of developing the land
• bringing on or stationing any caravans, vehicles or mobile homes
• permitting, or continuing, occupation of any caravan or mobile home already there
• installing a septic tank, electric cable, water pipe or any other infrastructure

The wording goes wider than a standard injunction, and the hearing note explains why. Counsel for the council told the judge that in a committal case brought by another council there had been “a live issue” over whether CCTV cameras, concrete posts, fencing and gates counted as development at all. The judge accepted the extension, describing its purpose as stopping the defendants “in their tracks rather than to enable them to enhance development around the edges”.

Copies of the order had to be fixed in prominent positions at the boundary of the land, and placed on any caravan or mobile home stationed on it. That is treated as proper service.

The dates that now matter

The council has undertaken to file its claim form by 4pm on Friday 11 September. The return hearing is listed for Tuesday 15 September at 10.30am, in person at the Royal Courts of Justice, and anyone affected can ask the court to vary or discharge the order there.

The hearing note shows that date was not the judge’s first choice. He asked for Monday 14 September at 10am, “just about two weeks”. Counsel checked his diary, said he was sitting himself that day, and asked for the 15th. Costs were reserved.

The council says it is now trying to bring the hearing forward, because the work has not stopped. Its page states that if contempt of court is proven, the sanctions available may include site clearance, vehicle impoundment, powers of arrest, fines and seizure of assets.

Why nobody has simply cleared the site

The council’s page is unusually blunt about the limits of its own powers, and it answers the question most people ask.

Building without planning permission is a breach of planning control, not a criminal offence. So the police have no power to intervene. Trespass action can only be taken by or for the landowner, and the council is not the landowner, so the evictions people have seen elsewhere are not available here.

Breaching a stop notice is an offence, which the council can prosecute in the magistrates’ court, with unlimited fines on conviction. Breaching the injunction is contempt of court, which can carry committal to prison for up to two years. But the council points out that neither a stop notice nor this injunction gives it the power to clear the site, and that injunctions under section 187B carry no power of arrest.

Both routes need evidence. The council says it is monitoring the site outside office hours and recording any breaches to put before the court.

The site itself

The land is in the Green Belt and lies in Flood Zone 3, the highest flood risk category, where the council says operational development is subject to strict policy control. It has no planning history at all: the council states that no planning application has ever been submitted for it.

One detail in the hearing note may matter later. Counsel told the judge that one named defendant is the registered owner on the title and the other owns adjacent land, and added that he suspected the land “has in fact been recently sold, but the Land Registry hasn’t been updated”. The order requires the council to apply to join any person it identifies from within “persons unknown” as a named defendant.

What it means for you

If you live near the site, the council’s own page is the place to check for updates. It is not in the council’s news feed: as of Sunday afternoon, eastherts.gov.uk/latest-news still led on an art trail at Hertford and Ware, and Sawbridgeworth Town Council’s news page carried nothing on it either, its most recent item dating from 3 August.

• To report further activity on the site, email Planning.Enforcement@eastherts.gov.uk. The council says the mailbox is monitored but it may not reply to every message.
• For anything criminal or an immediate risk to safety, call the police on 999, or 101 for non-emergencies. Planning breaches are not a police matter.
• Expect the next firm news around 15 September, unless the council succeeds in getting an earlier date. It says it will post an update either way.

The council also asks people not to confront anyone at the site, warning that threatening or disorderly behaviour could lead to separate legal action.

For other applications and decisions across the district, see our Bishop’s Stortford planning news page.