Hampshire council wins 'unauthorised encampments' High Court battle

A council has won a High Court batttle over unauthorised encampments in North Hampshire and beyond.

An injunction banning the setting up of such encampments will stay in place after Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council won an appeal to keep it.

In April 2019, the borough council and Hampshire County Council were granted a five-year injunction by the High Court, prohibiting identified people and new people from setting up unauthorised encampments within the areas of Silchester, Tadley Common, Bramley and elsewhere.

However, a subsequent review of the ruling recommended changes, the most significant being that it wouldn’t apply to anyone who wasn’t previously named on the injunction.

This month the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal – meaning that the injunction remains in place to include both those named as well as anyone else setting up an unauthorised encampment in the areas covered.

The injunction gives greater power to landowners and the police and means that anyone setting up an encampment in the injunction area will be prohibited from doing so and will be asked to leave immediately.

The borough council said in a statement that the areas covered in the injunction are "those communities most regularly experiencing the negative impacts of unauthorised encampments".

From April 2016 to April 2019 there were 182 unauthorised encampments recorded on borough council, county council and private land.

Encampments on borough council land were typically there for two to three weeks while the lengthy process to enforce their removal took place.

Those on private land often took even longer.

It is estimated that the borough council alone spent around £264,000 responding to and dealing with unauthorised encampments.

Since the injunction has been in force there have only been a total of 22 unauthorised encampments in the borough and those encampments that occurred in the area of the injunction remained for an average of under two days.

Conservative Basingstoke and Deane borough councillor Simon Bound said: “It is great news that the judge granted our appeal and determined that injunctions will continue to ban anyone setting up an unauthorised encampment in the injunction area, not just those people named.

"The council's injunction is based on clear evidence of unacceptable behaviour impacting on communities in our borough caused by unauthorised encampments.

"This included noise nuisance, intimidation and fly-tipped waste left on land."