Retired couple who said new tower blocked light to their flat could face £3,700,000 court bill

A retired couple who sued developers over a 17-storey multimillion-pound office tower that blocked light to their home could soon have to pay £3.7m.

Stephen and Jennifer Powell complained that Arbor Tower on London’s South Bank reduced the amount of natural light in their sixth-floor flat.

Bankside Yards is eventually set to consist of eight towers, including some 50 storeys high, with Arbor being the first building completed in September 2021.

But the project ran into trouble when the Powells and their 7th-floor neighbour, Kevin Cooper, sued, seeking an injunction to protect their rights of light and threatening the tower, which cost nearly £35m to build, with potentially being torn down.

The Powells won their court case, with Justice Fancourt ruling that the building was ‘substantially affected’ by their light being cut off and ordering the co-developer of the site, Ludgate House Ltd, to pay the Powells £500,000 in damages, plus £350,000 to Mr Cooper.

But the householders are now facing a bid to make them pay the massive £3.7million legal costs of the case due to the judge having rejected their bid for an injunction requiring the tower to be demolished.

During the trial of the case, the court heard that the Powells moved in the building in 2002, whilst property finance professional Mr Cooper bought his 7th-floor flat in 2021.

Their barrister, Tim Calland, told Mr Justice Fancourt: “‘The Bankside Yards development will consist of eight towers, the tallest of which stretches to 50 storeys in height. The marketing material for Arbor describes it as a mega-structure and boasts of exceptional natural light.

Mr Justice Fancourt went on to award damages to the Powells and Mr Cooper, saying that parts of the two flats had been left with levels of light ‘insufficient for the ordinary use and enjoyment of those rooms.’

But he refused the neighbours an injunction which would have required Arbor to be altered or torn down, saying that over £200m would be wasted in demolishing and rebuilding the tower.

That decision means that the Powells and Mr Cooper should pay the massive costs of the case, John McGhee KC, argued this week.

Representing the construction company, McGhee told the judge: ‘The claimants should be ordered to pay the defendant’s costs of the claims because it was overall the successful party, having successfully resisted the claimants’ claim for injunctive relief.

‘These claims were not about monetary compensation, but rather about whether the claimants could obtain an order requiring the defendant to modify its development so that the claimants would retain their light.’

McGhee argued that the claimants, having ‘failed to achieve’ their ‘sole purpose’ of bringing forward the case – the demolition of the tower – should now pay.

‘For these reasons, the court is invited to determine that the defendant was the successful party and accordingly that the claimants should pay the defendant’s costs,’ he said.

Barrister Calland, representing the couple, disagreed: ‘Undoubtedly, the claimants are the successful party in the litigation: the court awarded them substantial sums in damages which, in the case of the Powells, exceeded the largest sum ever before awarded in a reported rights-of-light case and, in the case of Mr Cooper, matched it.

‘The defendant may feel relieved that an injunction was not ordered, but that does not make it the successful party. Its defence of the claim failed.’

The developers are also arguing that Mr Cooper failed to beat an offer they made to settle his claim before trial, but his lawyers are arguing that the offer was invalid in relation to costs consequences as it included matters that went beyond those being fought over in the litigation.

The ruling on costs will now be given at a later date.

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