Councils and police secure injunction banning car-cruising across Black Country

A group of four local authorities and the police have secured an injunction banning car cruising across the Black Country.

His Honour Judge Robert Owen QC, sitting as a High Court judge at Birmingham District Registry, granted the injunctive relief earlier this week. The judge also agreed that personal service could be dispensed with.

The injunction bars two or more vehicles gathering in the combined local authority area between 15:00 and 07:00, the BBC said. Anyone breaching it could be in contempt of court.

The application by the local authorities – Wolverhampton, Sandwell, Dudley and Walsall – and the police was considered groundbreaking in two respects: the breadth of coverage over the entirety of the Black Country area, and the dispensation of the ordinary rules of personal service.

According to St Ives Chambers, whose barristers Joseph Giret QC and Anya Newman represented the authorities, the injunction application “required radical departure from conventional thought, and seeking and finding brand new solutions to overcome the inherent problems with the coverage and service issues; the solutions, as presented to the court were innovative, fresh and effective”.