Travellers are threatening to return to an "infamous" illegal settlement once workers have finished clearing the site, a High Court judge has been told.
Lawyers representing a local authority overseeing a clearance operation want a court order preventing travellers from re-occupying green-belt land at Dale Farm near Basildon, Essex.
Reuben Taylor, for Basildon Council, told a judge sitting in London that travellers had told contractors clearing the site that they aimed to return.
Mr Justice Langstaff said he wanted more detailed evidence of threats of re-occupation before granting any injunction and adjourned the hearing until Monday.
The council began clearing the illegal six-acre Dale Farm settlement last month following a decade-long row over unauthorised traveller plots on the site.
Contractors started clearing caravans and hard-standing after a major police operation to remove protesters.
Mr Taylor told the judge the council was seeking an injunction, under planning legislation, prohibiting residential use of the site and the siting of caravans or formation of hard-standing.
He said travellers evicted from Dale Farm - which had become "infamous" - had moved to a nearby legal traveller site and told staff involved in the clearance that they would return once workers had gone.
"It is simply that the contractors are coming towards the end of their operation. They will leave the site very shortly," Mr Taylor told the judge. "Officers have been informed by the former residents of the site that they intend to come back on the land."
Mr Taylor said the council wanted a court injunction to prevent that happening.
