Blackpool Borough Council v Alice Ester Beale & Ors

Section 187B of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 gives the court a discretionary power to restrain actual or apprehended breaches of planning control. Relief requires an independent, proportionate and commensurate balance between the public interest in enforcement, planning harm and urgency, and the occupiers’ personal circumstances, Convention rights, equality interests, children’s best interests and realistic alternatives. A failure to comply with the public sector equality duty is not automatically fatal: the court asks whether a compliant decision was highly likely to have been substantially the same. An injunction against persons unknown requires a compelling need and appropriate procedural, territorial and temporal safeguards.

The Council, the local planning authority, sought a permanent injunction under section 187B of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 concerning unauthorised development on land owned by the first to third defendants. The defendants, who are Romani Gypsies, had cleared, fenced and divided the land, installed services and occupied two plots with caravans. A planning inspector had dismissed their appeal against an enforcement notice. The defendants later applied for permission for a four-pitch traveller site. They argued that no injunction should be granted or that departure and restoration should await the final determination of the planning application and any appeal. The issues included the prospects of permission, planning harm, proportionality under Article 8, compliance with the public sector equality duty, the children’s best interests and the justification for relief against persons unknown.

1. The claim succeeded substantially against the named defendants. The First and Third Defendants were to be restrained in substantially the terms sought, with 21 days to leave the Site. A modified undertaking from the Second Defendant was to be accepted, failing which an injunction would be granted. No permanent injunction was justified against the persons unknown.

2. Section 187B of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 conferred a broad discretion. Following South Buckinghamshire District Council v Porter & Others [2003] 2 A.C. 558 and Ipswich Borough Council v Fairview Hotels (Ipswich) Limited [2022] EWHC 2868 (KB), the court had to balance the public interest in enforcing planning control, the planning history, the degree and flagrancy of the breach, urgency, environmental harm, personal hardship and Convention rights. Relief had to be commensurate. The court could not question the correctness of planning decisions already made, but could form a broad view of planning harm, urgency and the realistic prospects of permission or appeal.

3. The existing and proposed development caused serious harm to the open character and appearance of the Marton Moss Conservation Area and conflicted with relevant planning policies. The earlier appeal decision and the evidence showed that permission for the current scheme was extremely unlikely. The defendants had acted in deliberate defiance of the enforcement notice, and there was no compelling evidence that they had no alternative accommodation or that the Site was uniquely necessary for their health or welfare.

4. Article 8 required the court to assess proportionality. The occupation of a caravan could engage a Romani Gypsy’s ethnic identity as well as home and family life, as recognised in Chapman v United Kingdom (2001) 33 EHRR 18. The children’s best interests were a primary consideration under ZH (Tanzania) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] UKSC 4, but did not outweigh the substantial planning harm and other factors.

5. The Council had not adequately performed the public sector equality duty under the Equality Act 2010. The duty was substantive, continuing and required reassessment after the defendants’ detailed evidence was received. An equality impact assessment was not mandatory, but substance mattered. Applying Forward v Aldwyck Housing [2019] EWCA Civ 1334, the breach did not require refusal of relief because it was highly likely that proper compliance would not have produced a substantially different decision. The same conclusion applied to the nature and timing of the injunction.

6. For persons unknown, Wolverhampton City Council v London Gypsies and Travellers and others [2023] UKSC 47 required a compelling need, procedural protection, territorial and temporal limits, and a conclusion that relief was just and convenient. Those requirements were not met. Damages were not an adequate remedy for the planning-control claim.

This was a first-instance High Court claim. The judgment records a planning inspector’s dismissal of the defendants’ appeal against the enforcement notice, followed by without-notice and return-date High Court injunction hearings on 15 May and 5 June 2026. No court appeal from this judgment is stated.