Local government

Powers - individual suspected of drug-dealing in council area - council entitled to injunction restraining individual from entering housing estateNottingham City Council v Z (a Minor): CA (Lords Justice Schiemann, Mance and Keene): 31 July 2001Nottingham City Council appealed against the refusal of a judge in the Nottingham County Court to grant an injunction restraining the defendant, aged 17, who was alleged to have been dealing in drugs, from entering a housing estate in its area.The authority obtained an injunction restraining the defendant from entering the estate, but another judge, without hearing evidence or exercising any discretion, struck out the public nuisance action in which the authority had claimed the injunction, holding that the authority was under no statutory or other obligation to enforce the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, and that it was a matter for the police and not for the authority.

The appeal was pursued as a test case although the authority no longer pressed for an injunction because the defendant had been convicted of drug dealing and was serving a sentence of three years' youth custody.David Matthias (instructed by Nottingham City Council) for the authority; Ian Wise (instructed by Bhatia Best Solicitors, Nottingham) for the defendant.Held, allowing the appeal, that a local authority would not be acting beyond its powers if it spent time and money trying to persuade those who were creating a public nuisance to desist, provided that it considered that it was expedient for the promotion and protection of the interests of the inhabitants of its area; that the authority could institute proceedings in its own name to put a stop to a public nuisance pursuant to the provisions of section 222 of the Local Government Act 1972; and that there was no reason to deprive an authority of the right to institute proceedings simply because the activity which it was seeking to inhibit constituted an offence under the 1971 Act.