Residents of Sawbridgeworth, a market town in Hertfordshire, used a High Court injunction to force travellers off greenbelt land they had begun occupying over the bank holiday weekend, with police clearing the site without incident by 9am on Monday.
The injunction was served at 12:30am on August 31 by Nina Johnson-Marshall, a senior planning enforcement officer at East Hertfordshire District Council, who reached the site next to Sheering Mill Lane with a police escort after the order was issued out of hours by a duty judge.
The injunction and the threat behind it
Johnson-Marshall posted a copy of the order on the newly erected wooden perimeter fence, turning what had been a civil case into a matter for the police. The injunction gave officers power to arrest anyone carrying out further "development" on the grassland and barred the "occupation of any caravans, vehicles or mobile homes."
The judge cited a series of incidents when he granted the order, including one in which someone at the encampment used an offensive term against a Jewish protester before threatening: "I am going to follow you home and burn your house down." Anyone who breached the injunction was warned they could face contempt of court, imprisonment, fines or the seizure of their assets.
Site cleared to applause
By 9am, before the travellers could install caravans or mobile homes, police had cleared the area. Residents applauded as a convoy of vans, trucks and heavy machinery left the site.
"All gone," local councillor and former Sawbridgeworth mayor Greg Rattey wrote on Facebook. "What a fantastic united community we are. Well done everyone."
Sawbridgeworth, known locally as "Sawbo," has a population of just over 10,000. Beckingham Palace, the former country estate of David and Victoria Beckham, is located in the town, and Rod Stewart and his wife Penny Lancaster, who live just over a mile away, have been seen walking its streets, home to shops including Christine's, The House of Harlequin Boutique and Violets Floral Designs.
A bank holiday standoff
The trouble began the previous Friday, when lorries arrived carrying diggers and hardcore and workmen started excavating the land, putting up fencing and felling trees. Word spread on WhatsApp and Facebook, and hundreds of residents began manning a "front line" on Sheering Mill Lane, serving prosecco, tea, coffee and cake, playing music and even holding a pub quiz at 4am. Many camped out overnight in five-hour shifts.
Among those who took part were a Girl Guides leader, a semi-retired City worker with his Highland terrier, Bianca, and Margaret Shields, a 72-year-old retired postmistress. East Hertfordshire District Council assembled a team of litigation lawyers, including a barrister recognised by the legal directory Legal 500, and later described the response as a "masterclass in effective collaboration" between the council and the community.
"We cannot let these travellers do what they want," Shields said. "If we don't stand up to them, then who will?"
Damage to a wildlife habitat
The land, a floodplain next to a rare chalk stream that attracts muntjac deer, was badly damaged and will need substantial work to restore. Residents are now asking who sold the land to travellers in the first place.
The injunction named two men, Leonard Richards and Darren Glover, as the registered owners of the two parcels of land, along with "persons unknown," though the legal papers noted that one or both could later be removed as defendants because the Land Registry had not been updated. Richards, 55, of Dunmow, Essex, bought his plot for £20,000 in 2003 and runs a driveway and road surfacing firm that town councillors described as a "reputable business" also used by the council. He said that on legal advice he was unable to comment.
Glover bought his share of the site, where most of the hardcore was laid, for £150,000 in December 2023. He said he sold the land "a year to 18 months ago... through word of mouth and a little bit of advertising," and that a police officer had called him about the encampment. "I said the land was not mine any more and I hadn't a clue what was going on," said Glover, from Basildon, who said he buys land "now and again" as an investment and would need to check with his solicitor who the buyers were. He did not respond with an answer.
Calls to change the law
Josh Dean, the local Labour MP, raised the case with Prime Minister Andy Burnham on his first day in the House of Commons. "Thanks to our community's exceptional response, East Herts Council was able to move quickly and secure an injunction," Dean said. "But across the country, this is sadly the exception and not the rule." He has asked for a meeting with the prime minister to discuss changing the law so police and councils have adequate powers.
Councils are currently limited because sites bought legally by travellers cannot be cleared for trespassing, and "stop notices" are routinely ignored without consequence, leaving police to keep only a "watching brief." A stop notice was similarly ignored in Sawbridgeworth, but the scale of the protest led police to seal off the single-track, 20mph Sheering Mill Lane, stopping caravans reaching the site and buying time for the injunction to be secured.
Sounding the alarm
The first signs of the incursion were spotted the previous Friday by the owner of Bianca the terrier, a 68-year-old who asked not to be named after he and his wife were "threatened and abused" by travellers, some of whom residents said made "gun fingers" and throat-slitting gestures. He alerted a neighbour who is also a councillor, and the pair went to investigate, encountering a workman who claimed only a small section of pavement was being tarmacked. "You're having a laugh," he told the man, before joining the protest.
Dominic Connor, 64, a tech journalist, took on the job of contacting companies supplying the site. "My time was best spent disrupting their supply chain," he said. One firm he contacted, Harlow Fencing, said on social media: "We were led to believe the site was a legitimate new-build development and supplied materials in good faith. As soon as concerns were brought to our attention, we stopped all further deliveries."
Business manager Alex Williams, 45, used Facebook and WhatsApp to mobilise support, growing opposition to about 700 people. "People power is the only way to stop these developments," he said.
