Changing their agreement
In May 2007 two Irish Traveller families, the Joyces and the McDonaghs, were camped on a car park on Swansea Enterprise Park. The car park is used as an overflow car park when heavily attended events are held at the nearby Liberty Stadium. Due to a forthcoming event, the City and County of Swansea Council (CCSC) were anxious to move the Travellers off the car park. A local Councillor visited the site with an officer from Environmental Services and had discussions with the Travellers. He agreed that if the Travellers would move to an adjacent area of land, they could stay there for some 6 to 9 months until a permanent site was made available, or alternatively until a planning decision was reached as to whether or not to grant planning permission on the adjacent land. The Travellers were delighted with this offer and immediately moved on to the adjacent land. However, within a matter of weeks, they were again visited on site by Council representatives, who informed them that the Council’s offer had been overturned and that the Council now intended to evict the Travellers.
At that stage, several of the Travellers instructed the Travellers Advice Team to assist. As a result of our representations, CCSC agreed not to proceed with immediate eviction as then intended, but to carry out proper welfare enquiries and then give detailed consideration as to whether or not eviction was appropriate at a committee meeting. This was duly done. The committee decided that it was appropriate to evict, and possession proceedings were issued.
We assisted our clients in defending those possession proceedings on various grounds, including: that the Council was estopped from seeking possession (because they had made a promise on which our clients had relied to their detriment); that the Council’s behaviour had given rise to a legitimate expectation that the Travellers would not be evicted until a suitable permanent site had been provided; and that the Council’s decision to pursue possession was therefore an abuse of power and should be quashed. Further, that in seeking possession the Council was acting as no reasonable authority would do, and that therefore, again, the decision to seek possession should be quashed.
At the trial in the Cardiff District Registry, the Judge (His Honour Judge Jarman QC sitting as an additional Judge of the Chancery Division) heard detailed evidence both from the Councillor who had made the initial representations, Council officers, and several of the Travellers. In July 2008 the Judge handed down an interim judgment in which he decided the facts as follows:-
1. That in return for the Joyce and McDonagh families moving to the adjacent land, the Councillor said that they would be there for 6 to 9 months, that toilet and washing facilities, electricity, fencing and hardcore would be provided, and that he would see what he could do about obtaining permission for a longer period;
2. The Councillor did have apparent authority to say what he did;
3. CCSC carried out various works to the adjacent land including putting up fencing, levelling the ground, providing keys for the entrance barrier, arranging for rubbish collection, and removal of bunds which had previously blocked access to the area and depositing a substantive quantity of stones/hardcore type material.
On the 31st March 2009 final Judgment was handed down, and the decision of the Council to evict the Travellers was quashed. The reason given by the Judge for quashing the Council’s decision was that the Council committee who reached the decision that eviction was the appropriate course of action to pursue, had not been informed of the agreement between the Councillor and the Travellers, and the promises made by the Councillor to the Travellers, which had resulted in the latter moving to the adjacent land. The Judge found that the cabinet did not therefore take those matters into account nor consider them. The decision to evict had, therefore, been taken with disregard to a highly material consideration, and that no reasonable Council could have come to the decision to seek a possession order without having regard to and giving due weight to “each of the terms of the May agreement”. The Judge therefore dismissed the possession claims and also ordered the Council to pay a significant proportion of the Defendant’s legal costs.
City and County of Swansea Council – v – Christine Joyce and Others
Claim Number: 7CF30099 – 31st March 2009 Cardiff District Registry, Chancery Division
Barrister representing Mrs Joyce : Stephen Cottle of Garden Court Chambers
The Travellers Advice Team at the Community Law Partnership runs a Community Legal Advice Funded Telephone Helpline (0845 120 2980) which is available Monday to Friday 10.00 am to 1.00 pm and 2.00 pm to 5.00 pm