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Emergency Injunctions

Our specialist team of lawyers are regularly instructed to obtain emergency injunctions for a range of clients including local authorities and other firms of solicitors.

Our work includes obtaining injunctions for local planning authorities in order to prevent unauthorised development, including unauthorised traveller encampments. Our lawyers also have experience in obtaining freezing orders in cases where a defendant’s assets need to be preserved pending enforcement of a judgment debt.

Our cases include obtaining the first “hot spot” injunctions of their kind, successfully preventing unlawful incursions of traveller and gypsy sites on very sizeable areas of land. The applications meant that the local authorities involved did not need to keep returning to court to obtain injunctions over smaller plots of land in the same area.

Our experience and knowledge of the necessary procedures ensures that we able to provide emergency assistance in obtaining injunctions. We are on hand to assist with the drafting of evidence in support of applications and the swift and efficient processing of court papers to ensure that our clients are in the best possible position to obtain the injunctions they need, as soon as they need them.

We also assist with committal applications seeking imprisonment of defendants who have breached High Court orders and regularly successfully obtain final injunctions over land.

Our team also advise local authorities in respect of costs including cases where local authorities have had adverse cost awards made against them.

Key Contacts

Work highlights

  • Coordinating High Court injunctions to prevent breaches of planning control in large parts of areas in various different local authorities and then appealing to the Court of Appeal.
  • Acting for a central government department in a major IT contract where the losing bidder claimed the contracting authority had not done enough to neutralise the advantages of the winning incumbent.
  • Acting for a large South East borough council in two challenges brought by two incumbent highways maintenance contractors in a procurement conducted by Lots. In both cases the contractor argued that the Council’s award decisions failed to identify them as the “best” tenderer.
  • Acting for a Claimant borough council who commenced proceedings against a county council who decided to exclude its tender for a procedural irregularity.
  • Successfully obtaining an injunction for Surrey Heath to prevent travellers coming on to and/or staying on land.
  • Instructed by Ashford Borough Council to prevent breaches of planning control in relation to a caravan park of a significant size.
  • Successfully obtained an emergency injunction for Dartford Borough Council to prevent further caravans being brought onto their site.
  • Successfully obtained an injunction for East Herts District Council over an Easter Weekend to prevent caravans being brought onto fields in Little Hadham.

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Sharpe Pritchard recently acted for a Local Authority landlord in a case where they successfully ‘set off’ the tenant’s outstanding rent arrears against the tenant’s legal costs following settlement of a disrepair claim at Pre-Action Protocol stage. Case background The tenant (T) brought a disrepair claim against the London Borough of Newham (LBN) which was…

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Simon Kiely, a Partner in Sharpe Pritchard’s Dispute Resolution team, acted for Lewes District Council in prosecuting national building materials supplier Travis Perkins. The prosecution came about for offences under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 (the Act) following a fatal accident involving wood falling from one of their delivery vehicles. At…

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To find out how we can help you, please contact us today