Court of Appeal confirms Natural England’s right to seek injunction as an incidental power

Joe Walker and Samuel Hart share details of the court ruling which granted a government adviser the power to obtain injunctions ensuring compliance with land use regulations.

In a decision issued this month, the Court of Appeal in Natural England v Cooper[1] ruled that Natural England (“NE”) has the power (and standing) to obtain injunctions to secure compliance with regulations that govern the use of uncultivated land.

The regulations concerned are the Environmental Impact Assessment (Agriculture) (England) (No. 2) Regulations 2006 (SI 2006 No. 2552) (“Regulations”).

While the context of this case concerned NE’s ability to obtain injunctions to secure compliance with a specific set of regulations, the Court’s decision has wider relevance for public authorities in other areas.

This includes authorities who are considering whether it is possible to seek civil injunctions in connection with the performance of their public functions in the absence of any express statutory power to do so.

Key takeaways:

• Despite the absence of any express statutory power, the Court held that NE was entitled to seek a civil injunction to prevent non-compliance with the Regulations.
• The power to seek an injunction was incidental to NE’s statutory power to do “anything which is conducive or incidental to the discharge of its functions”.
• More generally, the Court noted, following previous case law, that where “a public body is given responsibility for performing public functions in a particular area, it will usually be implicit that it is entitled to apply for an injunction to protect its special interest in the performance of those functions”.[2]

Background

Mr Cooper had, for several decades, farmed 67 hectares of land in Devon owned by the National Trust. Between 1992 and 2012, approximately 30 hectares of the land was kept uncultivated.[3]

The Regulations regulate the use of “uncultivated land”, defined as land that has not been cultivated for 15 years. Therefore, from approximately 2007, the Regulations applied to Mr Cooper’s uncultivated land.

In 2012, Mr Cooper wished to carry out mechanical and chemical cultivation on the land. He accordingly took the initial step under the Regulations of applying to NE for a screening decision.

The decision issued by NE confirmed that the subject land was “uncultivated land” under the Regulations, and that Mr Cooper’s proposed project was a “significant project” owing to the presence of “features of important historic interest of regional and national significance” on the land.

Accordingly, Mr Cooper required consent under the Regulations, before he could carry out cultivation on the land.

Mr Cooper applied for consent.  NE duly advised Mr Cooper that it had insufficient information from Mr Cooper to determine the application.

Ultimately, consent was never granted. Despite this, Mr Cooper undertook various cultivating activities on the fields that were subject to the screening decision.

In the time since, NE took various regulatory steps available to it under the Regulations, including the service of remediation notices, a stop notice, and bringing a criminal prosecution against Mr Cooper.  Mr Cooper was convicted and fined on one count of failing to comply with a stop notice.

Following his conviction, Mr Cooper continued to plough some of the land, which prompted a further remediation notice to be served.

In 2022, NE warned Mr Cooper that unless he complied with the Regulations, they would apply for an injunction to restrain him from committing further breaches of the Regulations. A subsequent site visit from NE confirmed that further cultivation had occurred.

NE issued a claim in the High Court for an injunction.  The High Court dismissed the application, determining that in the absence of any express statutory power, NE did not have the power (nor standing) to obtain an injunction against Mr Cooper.

The Court of Appeal’s decision

The Court of Appeal overturned the High Court’s judgment, and determined that NE had the power to obtain an injunction.

The Court unanimously accepted NE’s submission that it had the power to obtain an injunction under section 13 of the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 (“NERCA 2006”), which generally conferred on NE the power to “do anything that appears to it to be conducive or incidental to the discharge of its functions”.

The key supporting reasons for the Court’s ruling are as follows. First, in addition to the general power quoted above, section 13 of NERCA 2006 also conferred specific powers on NE, such as the power to enter into agreements and acquire and dispose of property.

The Court held that “plainly, Therefore, section 13 confers a power to litigate where this is “incidental or conducive” to NE’s powers.

Secondly, the Court relied on longstanding authority in London County Council v South Metropolitan Gas Company[5] concerning the Council’s ability to seek an injunction restraining a gas company from excluding their examiners from certain testing stations.

The legislation in that question imposed requirements for testing stations that could be subject to Council inspection.  The Council was determined to have sufficient interest to obtain an injunction as the “controlling authority” and there was no suggestion it had an express power, so it must have been an incidental power.

Similarly, NE had been entrusted as the “controlling authority” under the Regulations to comply with an EU directive that applied.

Thirdly, the Court adopted previous judicial observation of Lord Woolf MR in Broadmoor Special Hospital Authority v Robinson [6] that “it is rare for a statute to provide expressly that a particular public body may institute proceedings to protect specific public interests” and that “this is usually a matter of implication”.  In line with this, the Court opined:[7]

“If a public body is given responsibility for performing public functions in a particular area, it will usually be implicit that it is entitled to apply for an injunction to protect its special interest in the performance of those functions.” 

Fourthly, NE’s powers are “fundamentally… concerned with securing compliance with the requirements for [environment impact assessment] and consent”.[8]    Accordingly:

“The application for an injunction is designed to secure direct compliance with relevant statutory requirements in future, thereby discharging NE’s regulatory function under the scheme created by Parliament.”

Our comment

The Court’s decision should provide welcome comfort to NE, and also be of interest to regulators in other areas who may wish to consider whether they may also be entitled to seek civil injunctions to secure compliance with regulations within their remit.

While the judgment concerns NE’s ability to obtain injunctions, it is of potentially broader application for other regulators with “responsibility for performing public functions”, in circumstances where an injunction would “protect [the body’s] special interest in the performance of those functions” and there are no express powers to rely on.

In every case, careful consideration will need to be given to whether seeking an injunction is incidental to express statutory powers and appropriate in all the circumstances, as the courts will only grant an injunction where doing so is “just and convenient”.[9]

A public authority would need to demonstrate sufficient evidence to convince a Court to exercise its discretion to grant an injunction.  In this case, NE had exhausted many of the regulatory powers available to it, and could demonstrate a concrete intention from Mr Cooper to continue to act in disregard of the Regulations.

However, there may be other compelling reasons to secure an injunction, such as where immediate action is required to prevent serious, irreparable harm.[10]

Joe Walker is a Legal Director and Samuel Hart is an Associate at Sharpe Pritchard LLP.

This video is for general awareness only and does not constitute legal or professional advice. The law may have changed since this page was first published. If you would like further advice and assistance in relation to any issue raised in this article, please contact us by telephone or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

[1] [2025] EWCA Civ 15 (“Judgment”).

[2] At [105].

[3] In accordance with two agreements with the (previously existing) Countryside Stewardship Scheme, under which Mr Cooper received payments in exchange for keeping the land uncultivated.

[4] Judgment at [99].

[5] London County Council v South Metropolitan Gas Company [1904] 1 Ch 76.

[6] [2000] QB 775.

[7] Judgment at [105].

[8] At [108].

[9] Senior Courts Act 1981, s.37(1).

[10] Kirklees Metropolitan Borough Council v Wickes Building Supplies Limited [1993] AC 227, 269G to 270B.