Approved Judgment
33. The breaches of planning control complained of are primarily the material change in the use of the relevant land to a temporary Traveller site, and the depositing of refuse or waste materials, without the requisite planning permission. The decision as to whether something is or is not a breach of planning control is a matter for the local planning authority, or the Secretary of State on appeal, and not the court ( South Buckinghamshire District Council v Porter & Anr [2003] UKHL 26; [2003] 2 AC 558 at [11], [20], [29] and [30]). 34. That said, the court’s power to grant an injunction under s187B remains a discretionary one, albeit that that discretion is not unfettered. The discretion must be exercised judicially meaning, in this context …that the power must be exercised with due regard to the purpose for which it was conferred: to restrain actual and threatened breaches of planning control. The power exists above all to permit abuses to be curbed and urgent solutions provided where these are called for. ( Porter at [29] per Lord Bingham).
35.
The Local Government Act 1972, s222 provides that: 1. Where a local authority consider it expedient for the promotion or protection of the interests of the inhabitants of their area – a) they may prosecute or defend or appear in any legal proceedings and, in the case of civil proceedings, may institute them in their own name, and b) they may, in their own name, make representations in the interests of the inhabitants at any public inquiry held by or on behalf of any Minister or public body under any enactment.
36. Accordingly, s222 does not create a cause of action; instead it confers on local authorities a power to bring proceedings to enforce obedience with public law, without the involvement of the Attorney General ( Stoke-on-Trent City Council v B&Q (Retail) Ltd [1984] AC 754 ).
37. The guiding principles as to the exercise of the court’s discretion under s222 are identified in City of London Corporation v Bovis Construction Ltd [1992] 3 All ER 697 at 714 (per Bingham LJ), and include: …the essential foundation for the exercise of the court’s discretion to grant an injunction is not that the offender is deliberately and flagrantly flouting the law but the need to draw the inference that the defendant’s unlawful operations will continue unless and until effectively restrained by the law and that nothing short of an injunction will
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