High Court Judgment Template

227. Here the following further points may also be relevant. First, local authorities have now developed ways to give effective notice of the grant of such injunctions to those likely to be affected by them, and they do so by the use of notices attached to the land and in other ways as we describe in the next section of this judgment. These same methods, appropriately modified, could be used to give notice of the application itself. As we have also mentioned, local authorities have been urged for some time to establish lines of communication with Traveller and Gypsy communities and those representing them, and all these lines of communication, whether using email, social media, advertisements or some other form, could be used by authorities to give notice to these communities and other interested persons and bodies of any applications they are proposing to make. 228. Secondly, we see merit in requiring any local authority making an application of this kind to explain to the court what steps it has taken to give notice of the application to persons likely to be affected by it or to have a proper interest in it, and of all responses it has received.

229. These are all matters for the judges hearing these applications to consider in light of the particular circumstances of the cases before them, and in this way to allow an appropriate practice to develop.

(7) Effective notice of the order

230. We are not concerned in this part of our judgment with whether respondents become party to the proceedings on service of the order upon them, but rather with the obligation on the local authority to take steps actively to draw the order to the attention of all actual and potential respondents; to give any person potentially affected by it full information as to its terms and scope, and the consequences of failing to comply with it; and how any person affected by its terms may make an application for its variation or discharge (again, see para 167(ii) above). 231. Any applicant for such an order must in our view make full and complete disclosure of all the steps it proposes to take (i) to notify all persons likely to be affected by its terms; and (ii) to ascertain the names and addresses of all such persons who are known only by way of description. This will no doubt include placing notices in and around the relevant sites where this is practicable; placing notices on appropriate websites and in relevant publications; and giving notice to relevant community and charitable and other representative groups.

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