(4) Meier
67. We should also mention a decision of this court from about the same time concerning Travellers who had set up an unauthorised encampment in wooded areas managed by the Forestry Commission and owned by the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs v Meier [2009] UKSC 11; [2009] 1 WLR 2780 (“ Meier ”). This was in one sense a conventional case: the Secretary of State issued proceedings alleging trespass by the occupying Travellers and sought an order for possession of the occupied sites. More unusual (and ultimately unsuccessful) was the application for an order for possession against the Travellers in respect of other land which was wholly detached from the land they were occupying. This was wrong in principle for it was simply not possible (even on a precautionary basis) to make an order requiring persons to give immediate possession of woodland of which they were not in occupation, and which was wholly detached from the woodland of which they were in occupation (as Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury MR explained at para 75). But that did not mean the courts were powerless to frame a remedy. The court upheld an injunction granted by the Court of Appeal against the defendants, including “persons names unknown”, restraining them from entering the woodland which they had not yet occupied. Since it was not argued that the injunction was defective, we do not attach great significance to Lord Neuberger’s conclusion at para 84 that it had not been established that there was an error of principle which led to its grant. Nevertheless, it is notable that Lord Rodger expressed the view that the injunction had been rightly granted, and cited the decisions of the Vice- Chancellor in Bloomsbury and Hampshire Waste Services, and the grant of the injunction in the South Cambs case, without disapproval (at paras 2-3).
(5) Later cases concerning Traveller injunctions
68. Injunctions in the Traveller and Gypsy context were targeted first at actual trespass on land. Typically, the local authorities would name as actual or intended defendants the particular individuals they had been able to identify, and then would seek additional relief against “persons unknown”, these being persons who were alleged to be unlawfully occupying the land but who could not at that stage be identified by name, although often they could be identified by some form of description. But before long, many local authorities began to take a bolder line and claims were brought simply against “persons unknown”. 69. A further important development was the grant of Traveller injunctions, not just against those who were in unauthorised occupation of the land, whether they could be identified or not, but against persons on the basis only of their potential rather than actual occupation. Typically, these injunctions were granted for three years, sometimes more. In this way Traveller injunctions were transformed from injunctions against wrongdoers and those who at the date of the injunction were threatening to commit a
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