Summary

The claimant company had a reasonably good prospect of establishing at trial that the defendants' use of a highway had been unreasonable and an interim injunction was granted.

Facts

The claimant company (B) sought an interim injunction requiring the defendant companies to maintain a clear corridor along a public road so as to enable B access to its site. The first defendant (W) applied to strike out B's claim. B was the leasehold owner of a large office block near the end of the road, the northerly part of which provided vehicular and pedestrian access to B's building. W, on instructions from the second defendant (L), operated a Sunday street market on the road. B argued that the defendants' operation of the Sunday market caused difficulties for vehicles accessing its site thus substantially interfering with its rights to use the highway such as to constitute a public nuisance. W accepted that B's rights had been rendered less convenient but argued that B had not alleged that W's use was so unreasonable as to entitle B to sue.

Held

The defendants were lawful users of the road and would only become unlawful if their use was unreasonable. B had a reasonably good prospect of establishing at trial that W and L's use had been unreasonable. Therefore B had a good arguable case. Given the nature of the wrong complained of and the nature of B's business it was difficult to quantify any damage. However a just solution was to grant the interim relief sought until trial.

Application granted.