Residents facing the threat of eviction from the UK’s largest illegal Travellers’ site have been given a reprieve until next week weekend.
A judge today continued an existing injunction until 4pm on Monday to prevent Basildon Council in Essex from clearing the Dale Farm site.
Mr Justice Edwards-Stuart is having to decide whether the injunction should be continued further and said today he hopes to give his decision on Monday.
Sitting at London's High Court the judge said: "This is a very difficult area and I can quite assure everyone I am giving it the most anxious consideration."
Earlier this week a High Court judge granted a temporary injunction preventing a local authority clearing the site near Basildon, Essex. The judge granted the injunction after saying there was a fear that measures being taken by the council “may go further” than the terms of enforcement notices served on Dale Farm residents.
At the start of today's hearing, Mr Justice Edwards-Stuart said "planning avenues" had been exhausted and told the court that litigation could not be viewed as "yet another springboard for delay".
He said the council had spent "substantial physical and financial resources" and courts had a duty to make sure that valuable resources were not wasted.
The judge said he would not grant a "long stay of execution" to allow "minor squabbles" to be settled.
But he was told by Marc Willers, appearing for the Dale Farm residents, that - quite separate from today's hearing - the residents were applying for permission to seek a judicial review.
It is understood the application will be brought on the grounds that the whole eviction process is "disproportionate".
The judge then heard that the Dale Farm Solidarity Network, a group of protesters helping the travellers fight eviction, is about to lodge another judicial review bid.
Ellen Wiles, appearing for the network, said the group was taking its own legal action on the basis that enforcement action against the travellers was "irrational". She asked the judge to allow the network to join today's injunction proceedings as its members were "legitimate protesters on the site".
The judge gave permission, but said the network was limited to making submissions in relation to any property it had at Dale Farm.
Ms Wiles said this included a tent and scaffolding "erected for the purposes of monitoring and observation".
Nora Sheridan, who lives on Dale Farm, said before the start of today's hearing: "We're just keeping our fingers crossed - praying for a good result. We don't know what's going to happen."