Families cannot use their children’s welfare or ECHR rights to justify deliberately occupying land in breach of a planning injunction, the English High Court has ruled.
The High Court of England and Wales has refused to relax an injunction preventing residential occupation of land near AWE [Atomic Weapons Establishment] Aldermaston after finding that dozens of families deliberately moved on to the site despite an order prohibiting them from doing so.
Handing down her decision in London yesterday (7 September), Deputy High Court Judge Sylvia de Bertodano held that allowing the residents to remain would effectively render planning injunctions “entirely toothless”.
The background
The case concerns land south of Reading Road in Aldermaston, Berkshire. West Berkshire District Council began receiving reports in August 2025 that the land was being prepared for development. Activity at the site increased at the start of November, with the council receiving an application to create 13 traveller pitches. On 4 November, the council served a temporary stop notice but this was ignored and work continued.
The council upped its enforcement game on 18 December, obtaining an interim injunction which prohibited the residential occupation, construction and the introduction of further caravans or other items on to the land. An exception was made for one family already living there.
By May 2026, however, the site contained at least 22 pitches occupied by numerous families. The council argued that, apart from the exempted family, all had taken up residence in breach of the injunction.
Sixteen further planning applications submitted in May were incorrectly completed and invalid. At the time of the High Court hearing, more than eight months after work began, no valid application for planning permission had been made.
The location presented an additional difficulty. The land lies within the detailed emergency-planning zone surrounding AWE Aldermaston, one of two UK facilities responsible for designing, manufacturing and maintaining nuclear warheads. The Office for Nuclear Regulation said it would be highly likely to advise against development unless the council could demonstrate that the additional population could be accommodated within the facility’s emergency plan. The court heard that caravan residents would be particularly vulnerable during a nuclear emergency because caravans offer less protection than permanent buildings.
The case returned to the High Court in June and July this year after the residents asked it to vary the injunction obtained by the council. West Berkshire opposed the application and sought to keep the existing restrictions in place.
The arguments
The residents applied to vary the injunction so that they could remain on site while seeking planning permission. They maintained that many families had occupied the land before the order was made and that requiring them to leave would interfere with their right to respect for private and family life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
They also relied on the welfare of the children now living at the site and offered to leave if an eventual appeal against planning enforcement action failed.
The council disputed their account of when occupation began. Its officers described finding a muddy, waterlogged construction site shortly before the injunction was obtained, with only one plot showing convincing evidence of residential use. Several caravans appeared old or damaged and had apparently been placed on the land as markers.
The decision
The judge found the residents’ evidence “entirely unconvincing”. Their accounts were unsupported by photographs, messages, social-media posts or reliable documentation and were inconsistent with contemporaneous photographs and council records. She concluded that only the family specifically exempted from the injunction had been living on the land when it was served. All other residents had subsequently moved there in breach of its terms.
The judge held that continuing the injunction was just and proportionate. Although the court had to consider Article 8, the welfare of children and the personal circumstances of the residents, those factors could not be deployed to obtain an advantage from deliberate non-compliance. “It cannot be right that those who deliberately breach court orders can use the fact that they have brought children onto a site in disobedience to an injunction as a trump card to defeat its purpose,” she said.
There was no evidence that the families could not return to the places where they had lived previously while the ordinary planning process took its course. The burden was not on the council to identify alternative accommodation where residents had chosen to move on to land already protected by an injunction.
The court also continued the order against “persons unknown” who might subsequently occupy or develop the site. Applying the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Wolverhampton City Council v London Gypsies and Travellers [2023], the judge found a compelling justification for preventing newcomers from rendering the injunction ineffective.
She did not determine whether planning permission should ultimately be granted. However, any application would face “particularly serious obstacles” because of the land’s position within AWE Aldermaston’s emergency-planning zone.
While expressing sympathy for the difficulty members of the travelling community face in finding permanent sites, the judge said permitting the residents to remain would send the message that an injunction could be defeated simply by ignoring it.
The parties
In West Berkshire District Council (claimant) v Berry and 33 others (defendants), the claimant was represented by Emmaline Lambert of Cornerstone Barristers, instructed by the council’s legal services team. The defendants were represented by Alan Masters of One Pump Court, instructed by Brilliance Solicitors.