The court gave general guidance on the approach the approach to be taken to applications by local authorities for borough wide injunctions on a quia timet basis against gipsy and traveller communities to prevent anticipated unlawful trespass.

When injunction orders are sought against the gipsy and traveller community, the evidence should include what other suitable and secure alternative housing or transit sites are reasonably available. This is necessary if the nomadic lifestyle of the gipsy and traveller community is to have effective protection under article 8 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the Equality Act 2010.

If there is no alternative or transit site, no proposal for such a site, and no support for the provision of such a site, then that may weigh significantly against the proportionality of any injunction order.

The submission that the gipsy and traveller community can “go elsewhere” or occupy private land is not a sufficient response, particularly when an injunction is imposed in circumstances where multiple nearby authorities are taking similar action.

There should be a proper engagement with the gipsy and traveller community and an assessment of the impact of an injunction might have, taking into account their specific needs, vulnerabilities and different lifestyle. To this end, the carrying out of a substantive equality impact assessment, so far as the needs of the affected community can be identified, should be considered good practice, as is the carrying out of welfare assessments of individual members of the community (especially children) prior to the initiation of any enforcement action.

Special consideration is to be given to the timing and manner of approaches to dealing with any unlawful settlement and as regards the arrangements for alternative pitches or housing.

It must be recognised it is plain that the gipsy and traveller community have an enshrined freedom not to stay in one place but to move from one place to another. An injunction which prevents them from stopping at all in a defined part of the United Kingdom comprises a potential breach of both the Convention and the Equality Act, and in future should only be sought when, having taken all the steps noted above, a local authority reaches the considered view that there is no other solution to the particular problems that have arisen or are imminently likely to arise (paras 108–109, 110, 111).