Planning injunctions under section 187B explained

A planning injunction section 187B application asks the High Court or the county court to order someone to stop breaching planning control, or not to start. It is the sharpest tool a local planning authority has, because breaching a court order is contempt of court and can lead to imprisonment, a fine or the seizure of assets. It is also the one authorities use least, and the reason is that the court decides, not the council.

Section 187B of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 is short. Understanding how courts use it takes longer.

What the power allows

Where a local planning authority considers it necessary or expedient for any actual or apprehended breach of planning control to be restrained by injunction, it may apply to the court for an injunction. The court may grant such an injunction as it thinks appropriate for the purpose of restraining the breach.

Three features of that wording matter. The breach can be apprehended rather than actual, so an authority can act before anything happens where it has evidence that it will. The authority does not have to have used any of its other powers first, so an injunction can run alongside or instead of an enforcement notice. And the court's discretion is wide.

The Act also allows an injunction against a person whose identity is unknown, which is how authorities deal with anticipated occupation of a field by people who cannot be named in advance. Those orders have to be drawn carefully, and the courts have tightened the requirements for them over time.

When an authority applies

Most breaches are dealt with by notice. An injunction is reserved for cases where a notice will not work or will not work in time.

The recurring situations are irreversible harm, such as the demolition of a building or the felling of protected trees, where waiting for a notice and an appeal would defeat the point. Deliberate and repeated breaches, where the person has ignored notices before. Breaches that are already the subject of a notice that is being flouted while a prosecution grinds on. And anticipated unauthorised development on a bank holiday weekend, when the council's offices are shut and a temporary stop notice cannot be served quickly enough.

Trees get their own power. Section 214A of the same Act allows an injunction to restrain an actual or apprehended breach of the tree preservation regulations, which is why a threatened felling can be stopped within hours where the authority moves.

What the court considers

This is where section 187B differs from the notice powers. The council's view that an injunction is expedient does not bind the court. The court exercises its own discretion, and the leading House of Lords authority on the point requires it to consider all the circumstances, including the personal circumstances of the people affected and whether the order would be proportionate.

In practice the court asks whether there has been a breach or a real threat of one, whether planning remedies have been exhausted or would be ineffective, what hardship the order would cause, whether the defendant has somewhere else to go where the case concerns residential occupation, and whether the relief sought is no wider than necessary.

The proportionality assessment engages Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, given effect by the Human Rights Act 1998, where the order would affect someone's home or family life. That has produced a body of case law on applications against Gypsy and Traveller families, in which courts have declined to grant injunctions that would leave families with nowhere lawful to live even where the breach was plain.

An authority that treats the application as a formality tends to lose. One that presents the planning history, the alternatives tried and a proportionality analysis tends to win.

Against whom an injunction can be sought

Against the person carrying out the development, the occupier, the landowner where they are complicit, and in some circumstances persons unknown. The order binds those named and anyone who knowingly assists in its breach.

Scope is where applications fail. An order against persons unknown covering an area larger than the land in dispute, or lasting indefinitely, will be cut back or refused. Courts expect clear geographical limits, a defined period, a review mechanism and proper arrangements for bringing the order to the attention of those affected.

Where the development is already up and the question is whether it must come down, the remedy sought is usually a mandatory injunction requiring removal, and courts set a higher bar for that than for an order simply to stop.

Breach and contempt of court

Once an order is in place, breaching it is contempt. The authority applies to commit, and the court can impose imprisonment, a fine or sequestration of assets. Committal is a serious step with its own procedural protections, and the standard of proof is the criminal one.

That is the practical reason injunctions deter where notices do not. Prosecution for failing to comply with an enforcement notice under section 179 of the 1990 Act produces a fine on conviction in the magistrates' court, which a determined developer may treat as a cost. The prospect of a prison sentence for contempt changes the calculation.

How it sits alongside notices

The notice route remains the default and the injunction is an addition to it rather than a replacement.

• An enforcement notice under section 172 gives a compliance period and a right of appeal to the Secretary of State under section 174
• A breach of condition notice under section 187A deals with a broken condition and carries no right of appeal
• A temporary stop notice under section 171E stops activity immediately for a limited period while the authority prepares
• A stop notice under section 183 stops activity alongside an enforcement notice, with compensation risk for the authority if the notice is later quashed
• An injunction under section 187B restrains the breach by court order, with contempt as the sanction

Authorities often run the notice and the injunction together, because the notice resolves the planning position while the injunction holds the ground. For a neighbour or a parish council pressing for action, asking which of these the authority is using, and why, is a more useful question than asking when something will be done.

The threshold for action also depends on how material the breach is. Where the departure is tiny, the authority may simply decline to act, and the reasoning in our note on de minimis in planning judgments explains why.

Why injunctions are used sparingly

Cost is the first reason. Court proceedings need counsel, and an authority that loses can face an adverse costs order. Interim relief may require an undertaking in damages, so if the authority turns out to be wrong it pays for the loss its order caused.

The second reason is the discretion described above. An authority cannot be confident of the outcome, and a refused application is worse than no application, because it tells the defendant that the council's position is weak.

The third is resource. Enforcement teams are small and the work is slow, and a single injunction can absorb a planning officer, a solicitor and a committee report for months. That is why authorities publish enforcement priorities and why most complaints are dealt with informally or not at all.

Where a landowner is left with land they cannot use because of planning restrictions, a different remedy sometimes applies, and our piece on purchase notices where land cannot be reasonably used covers it.

If you are on the receiving end of an application, take legal advice immediately. These proceedings move quickly, the consequences of ignoring an order are severe, and the proportionality arguments that succeed are the ones put properly before the hearing rather than afterwards.

If you are preparing an application that might attract enforcement interest, the better course is to get the submission right first time. You can see which supporting documents a scheme usually needs across the full set of report types and draft the policy case before you submit. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Injunction proceedings have serious consequences, so take advice from a solicitor and check the position with your local planning authority before relying on anything here.