Judgment Approved by the court for handing down.
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period 2016 to 2018, the First Claimant exercised its s77 powers on 10 occasions (with 7 occasions requiring an order to be sought under s78), at a cost of £4649. Following the grant of injunctive relief, the powers were not exercised at all between April 2019 and January 2024. In the period February to December 2024, the powers were exercised once at a cost of £1053.50. It also was submitted that it can be easy for an encampment to thwart enforcement attempts under s.77 – s.78 by the encampment waiting to be served with a direction to leave the land and then move to another section of land nearby, necessitating the process to restart. It appears a neutral argument that harm is minimised if removal of the encampment is swift, as has been the result of the injunction. 70.Mr. Williams described that public space protection orders (PSPOs) and byelaws are not helpful in addressing unauthorised encampments as they are slow to enact, and the enforcement is ineffective. The PSPOs and breach of a byelaw would result in fixed penalty notices and subsequent summons to court. 71. Mr. Williams states that the Council does not seek to punish Travellers for their way of life but simply restrict the areas of the Borough in which they can exercise their way of life by 10%. 72. I questioned the Claimants about the requirement for a power of arrest and they point to it being needed to give the injunction teeth. Mr. Williams paints the teeth as smiling in practice as the Injunction has been used to educate those in breach by providing advice. He underlines that the power of arrest is a last resort and has never yet been used. As a result, every occasion where the Injunction (and its predecessor Order) has been breached has resulted in the occupants moving on voluntarily once provided with advice by a Council officer. Procedural protections 73. Following the requirement in Wolverhampton , at paragraph 167 (ii) and 226 to 232 for there to be procedural protections for the rights of newcomers to overcome the strong prima facie objection of subjecting them to a without
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