Watson v. Croft Promo-Sport Ltd

[2009] 3 All E.R. 249, [2009] 2 EGLR 57 (Court of Appeal)

After a successful trial by the claimant alleging noise from a racing circuit, when the relevance of a planning permission to the nature and character of the area had been scrutinised and rejected as a defence, the trial judge refused to grant an injunction. The Court of Appeal held that the appellant home owners were entitled to an injunction to restrain the motor racing activities to the level above which they constituted an actionable nuisance since there were no exceptional circumstances which would justify awarding damages in lieu of an injunction. This approach was subsequently criticised by the Supreme Court in Coventry v. Lawrence [2014] AC 822: see for instance Lord Neuberger at para.119 (p.854)
“the approach to be adopted by a judge when being asked to award damages instead of an injunction should, in my view, be much more flexible”.