HS2 Ltd & SSfT v Persons Unknown & Ors
Approved Judgment:
Conclusion on the extension application and balance of convenience 55.
25 Whilst in actions in which there are only a few Defendants the procedure in Part 38 should clearly be followed. In PU injunction claims with multiple defendants, different and more flexible procedures are being developed by the Courts to bind and yet to safeguard PUs, add and then release defendants and to streamline costs. So far, many Defendants have been deleted from this claim. Some have been added. Another 13 have just been deleted with my permission in the previous paragraph. D6, wishes to be different. He has objected to any more simple method. He requires the Claimants to serve a formal Notice of Discontinuance. His rationale was nothing more than the desire for his own costs of the claim to be paid. I suspect also a desire to increase the Claimants’ costs. I dealt with the costs of the hearing at the hearing so, because D6 had succeeded on the purple land point, I awarded some costs to D6 against the Claimants. Inter alia I reduced counsel’s brief fee (which included the skeleton) from £18,000 to £5,000. There was no need for a Notice of Discontinuance to enable this Court to award costs for succeeding on that issue. So, the rationale for the submission was without weight in relation to costs. CPR r.38.2 requires a claimant to seek the permission of the Court to discontinue where the Court has granted an interim injunction. This the Claimants did, via their witness statements and skeleton, a formal method but not in 50 I do not consider that there are compelling reasons to continue the injunction over the purple land or that the balance of convenience test is satisfied for the purple land. For the reasons set out above I do not consider that the injunction should be extended in future in relation to the purple HS2 land acquired or possessed for the purposed of phase 2A. In summary, the reasons are that this part of the project has been abandoned; there are alternative remedies because the new Public Order Act provisions are in place; the evidence provided to the Court did not reach the required level to show a real and imminent need, in part because the protesters’ motivation to take direct action against the purple land has gone and in part because taking direct action against purple land would not cause disruption to the construction works for the HS2 project, it would cause peripheral nuisance. In addition, the Claimants have failed fully to comply with their clear duty to inform the Court of material change which occurred when the Prime Minister announced phase 2A would not be built. Because none of the 13 Defendants to be released has made any submissions to this Court, despite due alternative service of the application and because the Claimants are content on their own information to release them and no further costs orders are sought against them, I give permission for the above listed 13 Defendants to be removed as parties to the proceedings, save in relation to D6 who I shall consider below. I dispense with the need for the Claimants to file a Notice of Discontinuance pursuant to CPR 38.3(1)(a) for the 13 Defendants and make an order under CPR 6.28 dispensing with service of a Notice of Discontinuance. I note that Morris J. took a different route in Tfl v PUs & Ors [2023] EWHC 1038, and took that into account.
Removing various Defendants as parties. 56.
Removing D6 as a party 57.
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