Somani Hotels Ltd v Epping Forest District Council

For an interim planning injunction, the court must assess the balance of convenience in its statutory context and minimise the risk of injustice. A defendant’s good-faith, open decision to rely on its legal view, without applying for permission, is not by itself a factor favouring relief where there is no flagrant breach, evasion or history of failed enforcement. Protest and disorder opposing the use should not enhance the case for an injunction, since doing so risks incentivising further protest and lawlessness. The court must also consider the statutory and operational public interest in asylum accommodation, including relocation, capacity and preservation of the status quo. Under Part 19 of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998, desirability of joinder is wider than necessity where a public office-holder’s duties and evidence are materially engaged.

Epping Forest District Council sought an injunction under section 187B of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to restrain Somani Hotels Ltd from using the Bell Hotel as accommodation for asylum seekers pending trial of an alleged material change of use.

Eyre J granted interim relief pending the trial, refused an interim declaration, and refused the Secretary of State for the Home Department’s application to be joined. The substantive decision is reported at [2025] EWHC 2183 (KB). Somani and the Secretary of State sought permission to appeal. The central issues were whether the Secretary of State should have been joined under CPR Part 19 and whether the balance of convenience justified the interim injunction.

1. Joinder. The court granted permission to appeal on the joinder issue and held that CPR rule 19.2(2) required a wide interpretation. The gateway asks whether joinder is desirable, not necessary. A person whose statutory duties may be affected, and who can provide material evidence on the public-interest issues, has a legitimate basis for participation. The judge had wrongly treated necessity as the relevant threshold and had failed to account for the Secretary of State’s duties, the practical relocation of asylum seekers, and the wider public-interest evidence. The short delay caused by joinder did not justify exclusion. The Secretary of State was added as a party to the High Court proceedings. The court applied the approach in Pablo Star, Betta Oceanway and Blenheim.
2. Appellate review. Applying Hadmor, the appellate court does not substitute its own discretion for that of the first-instance judge. It may intervene where the discretion was exercised on an error of law or evidence, or was seriously flawed in principle.
3. Planning injunction. The judge had wrongly treated Somani’s deliberate decision to rely in good faith on its legal position as a significant factor supporting interim relief. There was no flagrant or surreptitious breach, no history of evasion or defiance, and conventional enforcement measures had not been tried. The guidance in South Bucks and Ipswich concerning the relevance of flagrancy and failed enforcement was material.
4. Balance of convenience. Protests and unlawful activity opposing the hotel’s use should not count in favour of a planning injunction. Treating them as a factor risks incentivising further protest and lawlessness. Alternative measures, including public-order restrictions or injunctions directed against unlawful protest, required consideration. The court also had to weigh the national and local public interests in asylum accommodation, the Secretary of State’s statutory duties, relocation hardship, capacity elsewhere in the asylum estate, and the desirability of preserving the status quo until the trial. The Council’s delay and procedurally unfair short notice were significant factors against urgent relief. Fear of crime was relevant but of limited weight.
5. The court did not decide whether a stop notice was barred by the statutory time limit. It granted permission to appeal, allowed both appeals, set aside the interim injunction, and left the case-management directions in force subject to amendment following joinder.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division) — [2025] EWCA Civ 1134: permission granted to Somani and the Secretary of State; appeals allowed; interim injunction set aside; Secretary of State added as a party.
• High Court of Justice, King’s Bench Division — Eyre J, [2025] EWHC 2183 (KB): interim injunction granted pending trial; Secretary of State’s joinder application refused; interim declaration refused.