A High Court judge has extended an injunction against travellers who attempted a bank holiday "land grab" on open space in Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire, meaning they remain barred from returning to the site pending a full trial. The judge also kept in place a power of arrest for anyone breaching the order, which the council's barrister argued was the only measure that had actually stopped the unauthorised work. The case matters because it tests how councils and courts can respond swiftly to unauthorised traveller encampments carried out in defiance of planning rules, particularly given widespread local disruption and an admitted shortfall in official traveller pitches.

Travellers arrived at the site off Sheering Mill Lane in late August with lorries, diggers and caravans, laying a concrete base and fencing off five plots before hundreds of local residents mounted patrols and overnight blockades. An initial injunction without arrest powers failed to halt the work, but a second one granted on 30 August, backed by police powers of arrest, "absolutely abated" activity within 48 hours. In court, the council's barrister, Michael Fry, said the occupiers' identities were unknown but presumed to be gypsy and traveller community members, acknowledged the council could not currently show a five-year supply of pitches, and argued the breaches of planning control amounted to public nuisance justifying a "necessary and proportionate" injunction; Mr Justice Lavender agreed and granted an indefinite extension, with no one appearing to oppose it.