Maidstone BC v Goliea Brazil & Ors.

On an application for an injunction under Town and Country Planning Act 1990, section 187 B, the court must exercise its own judicial discretion. It must decide whether relief is just and proportionate, rather than grant an injunction automatically on the planning authority’s request.

The court should consider personal circumstances, hardship, children’s interests, alternative accommodation, planning harm, the seriousness and flagrancy of breaches, previous enforcement failures and the planning authority’s own assessment. It must respect the authority’s assessment where material considerations have been properly addressed, but must reach its own conclusion. A serious, prolonged and flagrant breach, particularly one involving knowing disobedience of an earlier injunction, may outweigh substantial personal hardship.

Maidstone Borough Council sought a permanent injunction against 23 defendants under section 187 B of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. The land had been transformed from an undeveloped field into a largely hard-surfaced site containing caravans and permanent structures in the Metropolitan Green Belt and Flood Zone 3.

The Council relied on extensive enforcement action, including a previous injunction. The defendants relied on personal circumstances, children’s education and health, lack of alternative sites, and alleged deficiencies in the Council’s consideration of those matters and its public sector equality duty.

The central issues were whether the breaches justified injunctive relief and whether the relief would be just and proportionate for each defendant.

1. Applicable approach. Section 187 B of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 gives the court an original and discretionary jurisdiction. Under South Bucks District Council v Porter (No. 1) [2003] 2 AC 558, the court ordinarily accepts the planning status determined through the planning process, but must decide for itself whether an injunction is appropriate, necessary and proportionate. No single test governs every case.
2. The relevant considerations included the defendants’ personal circumstances and hardship, the best interests of children, availability of alternative sites, planning and environmental harm, the history and flagrancy of breaches, previous enforcement action, the likelihood of further breaches, previous planning decisions and the extent to which the Council had considered the competing interests.
3. The Council had adequately considered the circumstances of defendants 3 to 23. The development caused serious harm to the Green Belt, enforcement notices and a previous injunction had failed, and the breaches were prolonged and flagrant. Defendants 3 and 13 had knowingly breached the earlier injunction. Their hardship was outweighed by the planning harm, the enforcement history and the public interest in compliance with court orders.
4. The Council’s report did not adequately address defendants 1 and 2. It wrongly treated their temporary planning permission as expired, omitted their personal circumstances and failed to recognise that their breaches were less serious. The earlier planning decision granting them temporary permission remained highly relevant because the anticipated increase in alternative sites had not occurred.
5. The Council had failed to consider disability as a protected characteristic under section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, but this did not alter the overall conclusion on proportionality. The application was therefore granted against defendants 3 to 23 and refused against defendants 1 and 2.

First-instance decision. No prior appellate decision is stated in the judgment.