Planning injunction: when the council goes to court

 

Most planning enforcement happens on paper. The council serves a notice, you comply or you appeal, and if you do neither you may end up being prosecuted.

A planning injunction is different in kind, and people underestimate it badly. It is an order made by a judge, not a notice served by a planning officer. There is no appeal to a planning inspector, because there is nothing to appeal against. And if you breach it, you are not committing a planning offence, you are in contempt of court.

This page explains when a council can apply for one, why it does not have to try anything else first, how an order can be made against people whose names nobody knows, and what actually happens if one is granted against you.

Because an injunction can put a family out of the place they live, a judge has to decide for themselves whether that is a proportionate thing to do, rather than simply take the council’s word for it. Our page on human rights and planning enforcement explains where that duty comes from and how much difference it makes in practice.

Where a rented property is involved, the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 now matters too. Ground 6B(g) allows a landlord to seek possession where that is necessary to comply with a planning enforcement notice or injunction. The government added this to its planning enforcement guidance in May 2026.

Whilst we are happy to give you some help via this page, it is often easier to consult a professional. If in doubt – STOP – and reach out to us. We are here to help. Contact us here. 

 

What a planning injunction actually is

 

A council may go to court and ask for an order stopping a breach of planning control, where it considers it necessary or expedient for that breach to be restrained in that way.

The order tells you to stop doing something, or sometimes to undo it. It is aimed at you personally rather than at the land, and it is backed by the full authority of the court rather than by a fine.

That is the whole point of it. A notice can be appealed, argued over and, in the worst cases, simply ignored while the council decides whether prosecuting is worth the trouble. A court order cannot be treated that way by anybody who understands what it is.

 

The council does not have to try anything else first

 

This is the part that catches people out, and it is written into the Act in terms.

The council may apply for an injunction whether or not it has used, or is proposing to use, any of its other enforcement powers. There is no requirement to serve an enforcement notice first. There is no requirement to prosecute first. There is no requirement to have tried a stop notice and found it wanting.

So the sequence people expect, warning letter, then notice, then prosecution, then court, is not a sequence the law requires. A council that considers the situation serious enough can go straight to a judge. It may well be using its other powers at the same time rather than instead, including doing the work itself at your expense, which is covered on our page about direct action.

 

It can be used before the breach has even happened

 

Every other enforcement power in this part of the Act needs a breach that already exists. You cannot serve an enforcement notice against something nobody has done yet.

An injunction is the exception. The wording covers an actual or apprehended breach, meaning one the council expects to happen. If the council believes on good evidence that unauthorised work or an unauthorised use is about to begin, it does not have to stand and watch it start.

In practice this is why injunctions turn up in situations that feel like they came from nowhere: hardcore delivered to a field, machinery arriving on a site, a pattern the council recognises from previous cases. Nothing unlawful has happened yet, and an application can still be made.

 

Which court, and injunctions against people nobody can name

 

The application goes to the High Court or the county court. The council chooses, and the choice usually reflects how serious and how urgent the case is.

The Act also allows rules of court to provide for an injunction to be issued against a person whose identity is unknown. That provision exists for a practical reason. Where work is going on and nobody on site will give a name, the council would otherwise be stuck.

The consequence is worth stating plainly: refusing to identify yourself does not defeat an application, and an order can be in place covering what is being done on a particular piece of land without naming a single individual.

 

The judge decides what is appropriate, not the council

 

The council asks. The court decides.

The Act says the court may grant such an injunction as it thinks appropriate for the purpose of restraining the breach. Two things follow from that wording, and both matter if you are on the receiving end.

• the court is not obliged to give the council what it asked for, and can grant something narrower
• the purpose is limited to restraining the breach, so an order is not a general licence to control what you do with your land

An injunction is a discretionary remedy. That an application has been threatened, or even issued, does not mean an order will follow in the terms the council wants.

 

What happens if you break a planning injunction

 

Breaching an injunction is contempt of court. It is not the same as breaching a notice and it is not dealt with in the same way.

The court has powers to punish contempt that go beyond anything available for a planning offence, and they include sending someone to prison. That is why the advice on this page is more urgent than on any other enforcement page we write.

If an injunction has been granted against you, or an application has been served on you, get a solicitor that week. Court deadlines are not planning deadlines and they are not forgiving.

 

Maidstone v King: a six-month suspended sentence

 

Maidstone Borough Council v Fred King [2026] EWHC 1965 (KB) shows how serious the consequences can become once a planning injunction has been made and deliberately ignored.

Our Maidstone planning injunction breach news report looks at the sentence and compliance deadline in more detail.

The case concerned Warren Lands at Sandway, where a final injunction prohibited caravans and residential use and required caravans, vehicles, hardstanding, a steel-framed building and lighting to be removed. Important parts of the order were not complied with. The High Court rejected the argument that compliance had been impossible: the order had not been appealed, Mr King controlled the site and the judge found that it could have been obeyed.

Mr Justice Griffiths imposed six months' imprisonment, suspended for two years. Three months were punitive and three months were coercive, the latter intended to secure compliance. Mr King was given until 28 January 2027 to comply fully. If that happens, the coercive part falls away; if not, the full six-month sentence is liable to be activated.

It is a useful illustration of the difference between ordinary planning enforcement and contempt of court. Once an injunction exists, the question is no longer simply whether a planning breach continues. Disobeying the order itself can lead to imprisonment.

 

An injunction does not stop the enforcement clock

 

There is a narrow technical point here that is easy to get backwards, and it cuts in the landowner’s favour.

Obtaining an injunction counts as enforcement action for one purpose only, which is the rule stopping a council serving a second temporary stop notice without an intervening step. It does not belong to the closed list of steps that stop time running on a breach becoming lawful.

So an injunction does not pause the clock in the way an enforcement notice does. Our page on enforcement time limits sets out what does.

 

Is there a cost?

 

There is no application fee for you, because you are not the one applying. The costs come from a different direction and they are the largest in enforcement:

• your own legal costs, and this is not a matter to handle without a solicitor
• the council’s costs, which it will normally ask the court to make you pay if it succeeds
• the cost of complying, which may mean undoing work you have already paid for

None of that is a planning fee and none of it is on any published scale. Our guide to planning application fees covers what councils charge for applications, which is a separate question.

 

Can you appeal a planning injunction?

 

Not in the planning sense, and this is the single most important thing to understand about the process.

There is no appeal to the Planning Inspectorate, because an injunction is not a planning decision. What you have instead is the court process itself. You defend the application, put your evidence in, and argue that an order should not be made or should be made in narrower terms. Any challenge after that is to a higher court, and it needs permission.

Our page on planning appeals explains the appeal routes that do exist elsewhere in the system. If the underlying dispute is really about whether your development should have permission, an application or an enforcement appeal is where that argument belongs, and it is worth taking advice on running one alongside defending the injunction.

 

What to do if the council threatens one

 

Councils quite often warn before they apply. Take that warning seriously, because the warning is the cheap stage and everything after it is not.

Three things help, in this order. Stop the activity while you take advice, because carrying on while a court is being asked to stop you rarely reads well. Get a solicitor who does planning court work rather than a general conveyancer. And find out what the council actually wants, because an injunction is aimed at stopping something specific, and agreeing to stop that thing may remove the reason for the application altogether.

What never helps is silence, and what helps least of all is carrying on faster to get the work finished. Speed is exactly what an application for an injunction is designed to answer.

If a council has written to you about court action, our page on what happens if you ignore an enforcement notice sets out the other powers likely to be running alongside it. You can also reach our team via here to help.

Planning injunction: relevant legislation

A useful recent example is Blackpool Borough Council v Beale & Ors [2026] EWHC 2237 (KB). The High Court granted section 187B relief after repeated non-compliance with planning enforcement, while separately examining the Public Sector Equality Duty, Article 8, the position of children and the limits on injunctions against persons unknown.

The primary sources below are on legislation.gov.uk. Check the “Changes to Legislation” panel at the top of each page for amendments not yet written into the revised text.

The power is in section 187B(1) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, which reads:

Where a local planning authority consider it necessary or expedient for any actual or apprehended breach of planning control to be restrained by injunction, they may apply to the court for an injunction, whether or not they have exercised or are proposing to exercise any of their other powers under this Part.

• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, s187B: the power at subsection (1), the court’s discretion at subsection (2), orders against a person whose identity is unknown at subsection (3), and the definition of the court at subsection (4)
• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, s171F: the second temporary stop notice bar, and the narrow rule at subsection (6) treating an injunction as enforcement action for that purpose
• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, s171A: what counts as taking enforcement action for the purpose of the time limits, which does not include an injunction
• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, Part VII, Injunctions: the cross heading in full, inserted by the Planning and Compensation Act 1991 and unamended since

Other Enforcement Sections

 

 

 

Planning injunction Page Updated: 29th August 2026