The High Court refused an interlocutory injunction sought by Bray Boxing Club Limited and Peter Taylor in their dispute with Wicklow County Council over the Harbour Shed in Bray. The motion sought to prevent the Council from terminating an alleged legal interest in the premises without a court order. The court did not decide the parties’ underlying claims to possession or the validity of a notice sent by the Council in November 2020.
The dispute concerns premises rebuilt as a boxing gym at Bray Harbour. The Council’s predecessor granted a 2007 lease to trustees of the unincorporated St. Fergal’s Boxing Club. In 2014, Wicklow County Council issued a document described as a licence to six trustees of Bray Boxing Club for 11 months at €2,500 a year. The judgment said the document appeared provisionally to be a lease. The term, if it was a lease, expired in July 2015. No rent was paid after the Club moved into the new premises, according to the judgment.
After a shooting at the premises on 5 June 2018, in which one man was killed and two people were injured, the Council changed the locks and excluded those then occupying the building. The Council later said it would facilitate collection of belongings. The plaintiffs began their High Court action in 2019, claiming a right to occupy the premises and damages for alleged interference with property.
The Council’s letter of 9 November 2020 gave Bray Boxing Club CLG 30 days’ notice to end its licence to occupy and required it to vacate. The plaintiffs then sought an injunction. At the hearing, they abandoned their request for an order requiring the Council to let them back in and pursued only the restraint on terminating the alleged interest.
Mr Justice Allen said the application did not clearly identify what interest either plaintiff claimed or explain what action by the Council the proposed order would prevent. He also noted that the company was incorporated in 2015 and that the evidence did not establish a transfer of the unincorporated Club’s interest to the company. The court was not deciding whether the 2020 notice was valid; the judge said that issue could only be decided by the trial judge.
The judge refused the motion. He provisionally considered that the plaintiffs should pay the costs of the motion, with written submissions invited within 14 days on whether another costs order should be made. He was provisionally inclined to stay execution of the costs order until the High Court action is determined, subject to any submission by the Council. The judgment did not resolve the underlying action.