West Island residents have to face facts: a section of Angell Woods is now off-limits.

Most of the 210-hectare woods which stretch between Highways 20 and 40 in Beaconsfield is privately owned, and one of the owners has been granted a permanent injunction against trespassers.

The Association for the Protection of Angell Woods had been encouraging people to walk their dogs throughout the woods, even though about 40 percent of the territory is owned by Yale Properties.

In her judgment, Justice Johanne Mainville wrote that the Association for the Protection of Angell Woods encouraged people to trespass on private property, with some people even clearing snow from entrances.

Mainville said that the Association must immediately stop promoting the use of trails, doing work on the trails, and must remove all trail maps and signs both from the woods and from its website.

She noted that the President of the Association's home borders Yale's property.

The city of Beaconsfield will also have to post a notice on its website and advise citizens not to trespass in the woods.

Yale owns the largest chunk of Angell Woods and another group owns about 20 percent. The rest is public land, some of which was acquired by the Agglomeration of Montreal just two years ago.

Decades ago a large swathe of Angell Woods was zoned for residential development, but that was altered when Beaconsfield merged with the city of Montreal, and again after Beaconsfield demerged.