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	England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions >> Barratt & Ors, R (on the application of) v Somerset County Council [2001] EWCA Civ 1835 (30 October 2001) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2001/1835.html Cite as: [2001] EWCA Civ 1835

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IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
(MR JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER)

		Royal Courts of Justice The Strand London Tuesday 30 October 2001

Tuesday 30 October 2001

1. LORD JUSTICE BUXTON: This originally was a renewed application for permission to move for judicial review. The matter complained of is a decision of the Somerset County Council either to apply for or, alternatively, to execute a writ of restitution over land owned by them that was occupied by number of travellers.
2. The very brief history was that an order had been obtained under Rule 24 of the then County Court Rules for possession of the land. An application to review that order was withdrawn. Time passed. The personnel occupying the site changed, but not entirely changed. In those circumstances the County Council applied for a writ of restitution. It is well established that, subject to public law considerations, they were entitled to do so, even though those occupying the site were not wholly those who had been there when the original possession order had been sought. It is also relevant to note that the writ of restitution, although not a wholly usual remedy, is a remedy in the course of the original proceedings and is therefore not necessarily governed by the same considerations as to its appropriateness as might be an original application to seek possession.
3. All that is by way of background. When the district judge issued the writ, there was no attempt originally either to oppose it or to set it aside on grounds that the County Council should not have sought it. Such an application was not made until 16 October, that is to say the day before it was intended to execute this writ. It was unsuccessful.
4. The present application was then instituted. It came as a matter of great urgency before Scott Baker J, who refused permission to move. The applicants then moved this court. Within two days of the decision of Scott Baker J, Dyson LJ refused their application on paper. Nothing daunted, they nonetheless exercised their prima facie right to make a renewed oral application in court. That is the application which is now before me.
5. However, in the interim, as we have been informed this morning, the writ has been executed. It was entirely lawful that that writ should be executed because the stay that had originally been imposed on it by Davis J, before the hearing before Scott Baker J, was only to last until the resolution of the application, and it had been so resolved by a combination of the decisions of Scott Baker J and Dyson LJ.
6. In my judgement, therefore, these proceedings are now academic. Mr Willers, who has valiantly dealt with the matter on behalf of the applicants, submits either that that is not so, or that the court should nonetheless turn its attention to them. I do not for my part see how any further investigation of this matter by the court can properly (and I emphasise that word) assist Mr Willers' clients. They have now left this site. Were they to re-occupy it they would be doing so, as he rightly accepts, as trespassers in the knowledge that there was a writ of restitution which applied to the site.
7. The only possible relief that the court could therefore grant would not merely be a declaration that the writ should not have been sought in the first place, but also further inhibitions upon the local authority against taking any further steps without inquiry. I, for my part, would not be prepared to take that step for two reasons. First, I think that the matter is now academic; and secondly, as I pointed out to Mr Willers, like Scott Baker J I regard the basis upon which the original application, and therefore the renewed application, was put as being unmeritorious. The basis of the complaint is that the local authority was imperfectly informed about the personal situation of the travellers when it sought this writ of execution or when it executed it. But the local authority did ask those then representing the travellers for information on that point and they were told that it would not be provided. In those circumstances I do not see that the local authority can be criticised, and certainly not that it was at fault in public law, for taking the step it did.
8. Mr Willers, however, says, even leaving aside those points, that it would be helpful to both local authorities and to travellers generally to have the view of this court upon the issues raised in this case, academic though they may be. I can see that there may be questions in this area that could benefit from further consideration. I do not think that this case gives rise to those questions, quite apart from the overriding point to which I have already referred. Even if it did, I would not think it appropriate for such questions to be investigated in a case which is now academic. I will be forgiven for saying that long and bitter experience of the law, particularly of public law, drives one to the conclusion that to seek to determine what may be important issues of public law in a case where no practical result follows from the decision, almost always causes the matter to go astray. In addition, I do not think in the circumstances of this case that it would be right, fair or proper for the community charge payers of the Somerset County Council to have to fund such an inquiry into a matter with which they and their local authority no longer has any direct concern.
9. For all those reasons, therefore, and despite Mr Willers' proper attempt on behalf of his clients to save some point in this case, I would not permit it to go further.
10. I would finally add this. I trust that nobody will think that that reaction betokens any lack of interest on the part of the judiciary or the court system in the circumstances in which Mr Willers' clients unfortunately find themselves. This matter has been considered now by the original County Court proceedings, by the district judge who granted the writ of restitution, by Davis J who imposed a stay on that writ, by Scott Baker J who heard detailed submissions as to whether judicial review should be permitted, and by Dyson LJ who reviewed on paper Scott Baker J's conclusions. I mention all that simply to say that the fact that the matter is not going any further should not be attributed to any disinclination on the part of the judiciary to approach the problems put before it by Mr Willers.
ORDER: (Not part of judgment) Application refused; assessment of claimant's costs under the Community Legal Services Fund.