Suspected travellers have been banned from occupying a piece of green belt land after using diggers to allegedly prepare it for an unauthorised site.

The suspected ringleaders behind the scheme in Sawbridgeworth did not appear in court on Tuesday when East Hertfordshire district council was granted an extension to a legal injunction preventing further excavations.

Workmen with heavy machinery were seen digging up the land, erecting fences and felling at least one tree after arriving unexpectedly during the August bank holiday weekend.

With concerns growing about wildlife, house prices and planning laws, Facebook groups issued a call to action and locals gathered to defend the land in a peaceful protest.

The local authority stepped in when the area, which lies about a mile from the home of Sir Rod Stewart and his wife Lady Penny Lancaster, was transformed into a building site.

It served a temporary stop notice shortly after 10.45am on Aug 29 before making an urgent application to the High Court for an injunction.

An amended injunction was then granted and served at about 12.30am on Aug 31, which allowed police to arrest anyone taking caravans on to the site or occupying the land for carrying out works.

In a High Court hearing on Tuesday, Michael Fry, for the local authority, said the case was “one of those extraordinary and vanishingly rare cases” where the court should continue to give police the power to arrest those who breach the injunction.

Mr Justice Lavender granted the extension and continued the power of arrest, stating: “The evidence of the police is that it is only the power of arrest that has enabled planning control to be enforced in this case.”

The injunction is against “persons unknown carrying out, encouraging and/or facilitating development on, or with an intent to undertake development” on the land, and those “occupying or intending to occupy” the land, as well as the named individuals.

Legal documents submitted by Mr Fry and his team stated that it had “as a precautionary measure, assumed that they are members of the gypsy and travelling community to ensure that all relevant human rights and equalities considerations can be captured”.

“That said, the claimant observes that some of the photographic evidence suggests that the potential [defendants] are a wide range of ethnicities,” the documents read.

However, the council’s lawyers argued that “none of the potential arguments which might be raised would excuse or permit the activities which have been undertaken” and that there was “no right to seek to circumvent proper planning control by racing to occupy and develop land” and then “weaponising the ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights) in order to ‘steal a march’ on the local planning authority”.

The identities of those behind the works were previously unknown, however on Monday lawyers acting for the council were contacted by a solicitor acting for three individuals.

Mr Fry acknowledged that the council “accepts that it cannot currently demonstrate a five-year supply of pitches” for travellers, but that it was “seeking to address the shortfall“.

He said that there had been “actual breaches” and “apprehended breaches” of planning rules on the land which had “involved, and are likely to involve, conduct which was and would be a public nuisance” as part of “a prospective change of use from open space to, it is presumed, residential caravan site”.

The work carried out on the site included removing vegetation, installing drainage, erecting fencing and gates, and bringing “caravans, mobile homes, plant and heavy machinery, including multiple excavators, dump trucks and a ground roller” on to the site.

After the ruling, Eric Buckmaster, a Hertfordshire county councillor who attended the hearing in with several colleagues, told The Telegraph: “It was great, I think the judge has done the logical thing.”