Bonfire builders banned from four sites in east Belfast

It says the move is to prevent the delivery of bonfire material and was prompted by concerns for public safety.

The injunction which has been posted at bonfire sites at Ravenscroft Avenue car park / Bloomfield Walkway, Avoniel Leisure Centre car park, Inverary Playing Fields and Cregagh Park East informs those attempting to enter the sites that they could be fined or face prison.

The injunction states that anyone entering the sites, attempting to enter the sites, or remaining in the sites “for the purposes of directing, building, organising and/or constructing bonfires and/or providing materials for use on a bonfire” is prohibited from doing so.

A press photographer who visited the bonfire site at Cregagh Park East tonight observed that the material already gathered for the bonfire had been fenced off but saw no signs of the injunction which by law should be affixed to lampposts or any other conspicious portion of the site.

The injunction was applied for on Thursday and due to the sufficient urgency of the matter, it was heard almost immediately.

After Belfast City Council announced this evening it had been granted the powers to ban people from entering the sites, loyalist blogger Jamie Bryson took to Twitter to predict ‘chaos’.

Mr Bryson claime dhe had been proved right in his long-held assertion that councils were trying to use bonfire schemes to eradicate bonfires and that the matter would end in court.

He predicted that the injunction “will – as it most certainly should – be breached”.

He also commented: “Belfast City Council have, via their actions in the High Court, opened the door to chaos. Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.”

Sinn Fein’s group leader on Belfast City Council welcomed the injunction and suggested council should go a step further and remove the material currently at the sites.

Mr McVeigh said: “The gathering and storing of materials has disrupted the use of some of these sites and by burning these large pyres council property would be further destroyed

“It is now critically important that the PSNI and Belfast City Council act upon these injunctions to ensure that the dangerous material already gathered at these sites is safely removed in order to protect the people, homes and property in the vicinity of these illegal bonfires.”