Sheffield Environmental Services & Ors v Persons Unknown

The Claimants seek an injunction against persons described as Persons Unknown who, in connection with strikes organised by UNITE the Union and without the Claimants’ consent, enter occupy or remain on, or prevent, slow down or otherwise interfere with the access or egress of any other individual or vehicle to or from five sites specified in the Sheffield area (“the Land”). The Claimants are part of a corporate group whose parent entity is Veolia Environnement S.A, (“Veolia”). Through a contract with the First Claimant, Veolia provides waste management services in Sheffield under a contract with Sheffield City Council (“the Sheffield City Council Contract”). The sites which comprise the Land are business premises used to deliver the Sheffield City Council Contract in which the First, Second or Third Claimant are the leaseholder or freeholder.

The order sought is that the Defendants must not, without the consent of the Claimants enter, occupy or remain upon the Land and that the Defendants must not, without the consent of the Claimants prevent, slow down or otherwise interfere with the access or egress of any other individual or vehicle to or from the Land. They also seek an order for Defendants to be both prohibited from doing the prohibited acts either by themselves, or in any other way, or by means of another person acting on their behalf or on their instructions.

They seek the injunction for a period of three years with a mandatory annual renewal hearing.

Before the hearing, the court had before it two witness statements and exhibits (including CCTV footage) from Elizabeth Johnson, Interim Contract Manager at Veolia based at Lumley Street Depot with responsibility for Veolia’s delivery of waste collection services in Sheffield dated 4 and 10 June 2025 respectively and one witness statement with exhibits from Donald Macphail, Chief Operating Officer for waste treatment division of Veolia nationally dated 4 June 2025 and correspondence from Veolia’s lawyers with both the Court and UNITE the Union (“Unite”)’s solicitors, Thompsons LLP.

Over the short adjournment during the hearing on 13 June 2025, further evidence was served consisting of two witness statements of Robert Allen, solicitor at Simmons and Simmons LLP, the Claimants’ solicitors, which were accepted in evidence by the Court.

There was no appearance by or on behalf of the defendants nor evidence served.

The background to the application is a dispute between two trade unions. The GMB has an exclusive recognition agreement for collective bargaining with Veolia in respect of, amongst other things, pay, hours and holidays for workers employed by Veolia in the Sheffield City Council Contract. Unite would also like to be recognised for the purposes of collective bargaining by Veolia. GMB does not agree to Unite having a recognition agreement with Veolia and Veolia respects GMB’s wishes. The GMB conducts collective bargaining with Veolia on behalf of all workers in the bargaining unit within the collective agreement, regardless of which, if any union, the workers belong to.

Veolia employs approximately 200 staff on the Sheffield City Council Contract to drive its 60 refuse collection vehicles (“RCV”) which are based at their Lumley Street Depot (the name of the leasehold property on the south of Lumley Street, Sheffield, S4 7ZJ registered at the Land Registry SYK574817 of which the First Claimant is the leaseholder (referred to as Site A in the claim form)). The RCVs are scheduled to leave at 6.45am every weekday morning from the Lumley Street Depot to collect the household waste and recycling from the residents of Sheffield City and take it to the appropriate waste or recycling centre, before returning with empty RCVs to the Lumley Street Depot. Nearby to the Lumley Street Depot on the north side of Lumley Street is Veolia’s workshop for its RCVs on property (with the same address and postcode) which is leased to the First Claimant by Sheffield City Council registered at the Land Registry under leasehold title SYK437808 (referred to as site B in the claim form).

Veolia has three waste disposal sites relevant to the Sheffield City Council Contract. Veolia occupies a site at Bernard Road, Sheffield (listed as site C in the claim form, registered at the Land Registry under leasehold title number SYK437806) under a lease from Sheffield City Council to the First Claimant, where the domestic waste is taken for incineration, called an ERF (Energy Recovery Facility), referred to as the Bernard Road Site. Mixed dry recycling is taken to a waste disposal facility in Tinsley Park Road which is registered at the Land Registry under two leasehold title numbers, SYK5111006 (Tinsley Park Road A) and SYK611970 (Tinsley Park Road B) which Veolia through the Third Claimant occupies under leases from the respective freeholders (site D in the claim form). Paper and card recycling is taken to the third waste disposal facility at Crown Works, Rotherham Road, Beighton, S20 1AH, registered at the Land Registry under freehold title SYK133481, referred to as the Beighton Site. Veolia through the Third Claimant is the freehold owner of this site (referred to as site E in the claim form). During each round an RCV may need to visit the waste disposal facility to off load the waste or recycling a number of times depending on the volume of waste.

The operatives and drivers of the RCVs collect the rubbish from the bins on their pre-assigned route and work on a “Task and Finish” basis which means that they can leave work when they have either finished their round and taken all the waste and recycling to the appropriate site and returned their RCV back to the Lumley Street Depot or at the end of their shift at 3pm, whichever is the earlier. So the quicker they can complete their round, the quicker they can go home, which can sometimes be around noon, but more usually is 1-1.30pm. Crews collect around 70,000 bins per day when they collect the 100% target collection rate. The term for an unemptied or uncollected bin is a dropped bin.

Until recently, security at the Lumley Street Depot and Workshop and the Bernard Road Site consisted of CCTV cameras and pedestrian gates.

Veolia became aware of Unite’s interest in having collective bargaining arrangements with them in respect of the Sheffield City Council Contract in early 2024 and sought to involve the statutory body, Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (“Acas”) in the spring of 2024 to try to settle the dispute between the two unions. However, on 10 May 2024 Acas withdrew assistance since this was an inter-union dispute between two TUC affiliated trade unions and it is their long-standing policy not to become involved in such matters which are for trade unions to seek to resolve between themselves.

On 10 June 2024 Unite served a notice on Veolia that it intended to hold a ballot for industrial action under the statutory procedures in the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 (TULR(C)A 1992) for their members employed as driver and loader on the Sheffield City Council Contract. Their members were duly balloted to see if they wished to take part in strike action in the trade dispute described as Veolia’s refusal to recognise Unite members to have their terms negotiated by their union and the strike action was expected to take place within the period from mid July 2024 to late December 2024. The ballot closed on 2 July 2024. Of the 78 individuals entitled to vote in the ballot, 56 cast a vote, 52 voted in favour of strike action and 4 against. Industrial action in the form of strike action commenced at the end of July 2024 and has continued since then, with following further periodic renewed ballots held every 12 weeks. Initially the strike action was discontinuous for one week in July 2024, but since then has been continuous strike action.

The most recent notification of ballot results on 6 February 2025 stated that the number of individuals entitled to vote in the ballot was 59, the number of votes cast was 47 and of those who chose to vote, 45 voted in favour of continued strike action, one voted against and there was one spoilt ballot paper. On 29 May 2025 Unite informed Veolia of its intention to hold a further ballot on 5 June 2025 to canvas the views of its members to take strike action expected to take place from early July to mid December 2025. The balloting constituency has now reduced to 56.

As this is an inter-union dispute between two TUC affiliated unions, GMB referred the dispute to the TUC in December 2024 under the Bridlington Principles established to help resolve disputes of this kind. The dispute has not yet been resolved and it is not known what steps the TUC has taken or is intending to take.

Unite has also tried to gain recognition with Veolia for its members on the Sheffield City Council Contract through the statutory trade union recognition machinery under TULR(C)A 1992 to the Central Arbitration Committee (“CAC”). Unite made an application to Veolia under the statutory procedure in February 2025 which was refused by Veolia on grounds of its of existing recognition agreement with GMB. Following Veolia’s refusal Unite applied to the CAC as it was entitled to do under the procedure. The CAC refused to accept the application on 3 April 2025, declaring it inadmissible because of the existing recognition agreement in force between Veolia and the GMB which is an independent trade union, covering, as a minimum, pay, hours and holidays. Other than judicial review there is no right of appeal from a CAC decision.

From July 2024 Unite has held a picket line outside the Lumley Street Depot which has been conducted in accordance with the BEIS Code of Practice on picketing. The picket line is attended by Unite officials and some of Veolia’s staff who are on strike. They play music and seek to persuade their fellow workers to support their cause and are not disrupting operations and acting in accordance with the law.

The strikes themselves have had some minimal impact on bin collections within Sheffield City Council. Full details had not been provided in the evidence, but in the course of the last week in March 2024 the number of dropped bins there was a total of 1,727 dropped bins varying from 1 to 996 each day, out of the 350,000 normal weekly collection rate across the city.

Following the CAC ruling that Unite’s application was inadmissible, the General Secretary of Unite, Sharon Graham, came to Birmingham to address a rally outside the Lumley Street Depot on 11 April 2025. From the CCTV footage approximately 50 people seem to be in attendance. Ms Graham gave a rallying speech reassuring her members that they had Unite’s full support, that although Unite had 101 current industrial disputes going on across the country she would do everything in her power to make sure that they would win the dispute and make Veolia recognise Unite. She said that they must now escalate the dispute and she would discuss with the team later what that escalation would look like.

At some point in time – it is not clear from the evidence whether this commenced before or after the Sharon Graham visit that day – in addition to the official picket line, a number of individuals associated with Unite wearing hi-vis jackets arrived at Lumley Road Depot from 6am and hand out leaflets, fire air horns, flares and red smoke, play loud music and hand out leaflets to Veolia staff as they are entering the site on their way to work.

This application is not a complaint about the picketing by Unite officials and their members employed by Veolia and Veolia does not allege that Unite has breached the Code of Practice on Picketing on the official picket line which it is conducting in accordance with ss.220 and 220A TULR(C)A 1992. It is about the protesters who are not currently thought by Veolia to be part of Unite who are acting apart from the Unite picket line. It is relevant to bear in mind that picketing outside s.220 is not per se tortious and unlawful. The point of s.220 is to confer immunity against certain tort actions such as inducing breach of contract and conspiracy where the act is done in the contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute and the union complies with the various balloting provisions under what has come to be known as the “golden formula” set out in s. 219 TULR(C)A. Veolia does not seek for the official picket, or the activities of the individuals handing out leaflets described in paragraph 20 to be subject to the proposed injunction which do not interfere with the operation of the site.

What Veolia objects to is a third group consisting mostly of masked individuals engaged in what they have termed as termed as direct action which commenced on 15 April 2025 when sometime before 6.45am approximately nine masked individuals began walking slowly in continuous circles in front of the gate at Lumley Street Depot as soon as the gates to the depot opened, blocking the RCVs and preventing them from leaving the depot. From a comparison of the CCTV footage and the boundaries marked on the Land Registry plans it would appear that the slow walkers were mostly on the public highway but part of the circle involved walking on Veolia’s land by a matter of a few inches, possibly a foot. The procession continued until 9.15am and had the effect of preventing any RCVs from leaving until 9.15am. As a result, 6,435 bins were dropped that day and it took three days until 17 April for the bin men to catch up and complete the collections scheduled for 15 April.

In response to the events on 15 April Veolia implemented a contingency plan. The RCVs were moved from Lumley Street to other of Veolia’s sites and Veolia took on a new site on a temporary basis at Beeley Wood specifically to mitigate the effect of the disruption at the Lumley Street Depot. However, the contingency plan was not successful in mitigating the effect of the disruption at the Lumley Street Depot as when the 10 RCVs tried to leave the Beeley Wood site on 17 April 2025, masked individuals prevented them from doing so at both the back and front entrances to the Beeley Wood Site and only one RCV could leave the site. It had been an expensive and time consuming exercise (both logistically and in manpower) to set up the contingency site plan at Beeley Wood.

Direct action continued on the dates and times as set out below:

Since the compiling of the table above and after Veolia took the steps set out below to give notice to the defendants of its application, the direct action has been repeated on three dates at two sites. On 11 June 2025 approximately 20 masked individuals walked in a circle in front of the Lumley Street Depot Entrance, and also at the Workshop Lumley Street Entrance and the Workshop Worthing Road Exit. They arrived at 6.10 am and left at 7.50 am. The direct action caused a 65 minute delay to the RCVs leaving Lumley Street. Masked individuals also arrived at 10.20 am and walked in a circle in front of vehicles attempting to leave the Tinsley Park Road Exit. They left at 11.15 am.

On 12 June 2025 approximately 20 masked individuals walked in front of the Lumley Street Depot Entrance, and the Workshop Lumley Street Entrance and the Workshop Worthing Road Exit. They arrived at 6.10 am and left at 7.50am. The direct action caused a 65 minute delay to the RCVs leaving Lumley Street. On the same day masked individuals walked in a circle in front of vehicles attempting to leave the Tinsley Park Road Exit. They arrived at 10.15 am and left at 11.26 am.

On 13 June 2025 RCVs were delayed by 10 minutes from leaving Lumley Street Depot by two groups of protesters walking slowly in circles in front of the gates between 6.45am and 7.50am.

Veolia have taken a number of other steps in addition to the contingency plan implemented immediately after the 15 April direct action. On 18 April 2025 Veolia erected a Health and Safety Notice at the Lumley Street Depot which stated that it acknowledged the right to lawful protest and wished to ensure the safety of all individuals involved. It stated that they were aware that there had been recent incidents that had resulted in heightened risk to health and safety at this site. It was requested that all should adhere to the following safety guidelines:

“1.

Avoid Moving Vehicles: Please maintain a safe distance from all moving vehicles (taking particular note of areas with large amounts of vehicle traffic such as access used by lorries and other vehicles).

2.

Keep clear of Heavy Machinery: For your safety, do not approach or obstruct heavy machinery. Such machinery can pose significant risk to health and safety if not given adequate space to operate.

3.

Consider your Surroundings: Always remain vigilant and aware of your surroundings to prevent any unintended incidents or risks to your health and safety or the health and safety of others. Your cooperation is greatly appreciated in ensuring a safe environment for everyone. Please ensure you take all reasonable safety precautions into account at all times.”

Temporary Heras fencing was installed along the boundary between Veolia’s land and the public highway on 18 April 2025 which was ineffective to prevent the action taking place. On 1 May 2025 Veolia painted a white line on the tarmac outside the Lumley Street Depot entrance demarcating the boundary between their property and the public highway which has been effective in reducing trespass onto their land, which is now occasional and minimal. But the circle of slow walkers outside the Lumley Street Depot has simply moved marginally further away from the gate to the site so as not to trespass on Veolia’s land as a result and it has not reduced the effectiveness of the direct action in stopping the RCVs from leaving the site.

Veolia have asked for police assistance on occasion. When the police have arrived they have allowed the protest activity to continue and consider it to be a civil matter. Veolia has ensured that supervisors are present on each occasion of direct action and additional security guards have been hired.

The harm identified in Ms Johnson’s statement is of the increased number of dropped bins since the direct action commenced set out above. The dropped bin data from the direct action on 11 and 12 June 2025 was not available in time for the hearing on 13 April.2025. There have been some complaints from Sheffield residents who have not had their bins emptied on the scheduled days and Veolia is responding to social media complaints informing residents to continue to leave their bins out for collection and the bins have then been emptied within two or three days of the normal collection day.

The Tinsley Park site is used by third parties and the road outside is narrow. There is concern, but there have been no problems yet specifically identified, of third party vehicles being trapped inside and vehicles, which include HGVs being unable to enter the site at the times when the entrance is obstructed.

The waste collection staff are impacted by their rounds taking longer and sometimes not being complete within their contracted hours, resulting in overtime. Supervisors and managers are finding it stressful and time consuming dealing with the disruption. Morale is being affected and there are concerns of increasing acrimony from the defendants towards the waste disposal staff who are not on strike, especially the GMB rep at the Lumley Street Depot and towards the managers.

The additional cost to Veolia is principally in overtime, but it has also incurred additional security costs since 15 April 2025 of around £2,500 per month. The Heras fencing was rented and then purchased costing £7,000 and the licence for the contingency site at Beeley Wood cost £8,000. The total costs have been in excess of £60,000.

Veolia issued proceedings and this application on 4 June 2025 in the Business and Property Courts of the Leeds District Registry with a certificate of urgency. Arrangements were made for the application to be heard in Sheffield since it is appropriate for the case to be heard as locally as possible to the subject matter of the application.

Veolia’s solicitors sought to bring the proceedings and this application to the attention of the defendants by three means: by uploading a copy of the claim to their website: https://www.sheffield.veolia.co.uk/ (“the Sheffield Veolia website”); by sending an email to the following email addresses: