Bankside Yards Judgement Paves the Way
Cooper vs Ludgate House Ltd and Powell vs Ludgate House Ltd (8th July 2025) is the latest landmark High Court judgement on Rights of Light matters.
Cooper (Flat 705) and Powell (Flat 605), leasehold owners in Bankside Lofts on Hopton Street SE1, claimed that the Bankside Yards development opposite - specifically, the 19-storey Arbor building of that development - had unlawfully interfered with the rights to light that they enjoyed over the site.
There were a few legal principles affecting this case:
1) Impact of Section 203 of the Housing and Planning Act (2016) on the appropriate legal scenario for assessment
In 2022, Southwark Borough Council had resolved to use its powers under the Act to protect the site from injunction, thus allowing the development to proceed. However, Arbor was excluded from this protection owing to it being substantially complete. This led to arguments relating to the appropriate assessment scenario for the Rights of Light impact to the claimants’ properties (CS1, CS2 or DS1).
Mr Justice Fancourt held that light that could not be protected by the claimants (i.e. the part of the development that was protected under the Act) had to be excluded from the assessment of the impact of Arbor (CS1). It was found, in this scenario, that Arbor had caused an infringement of the claimants’ rights to light.
2) Assessment methodology
The court was asked to consider whether the traditional Waldram method of measuring light in Rights of Light cases remains valid and appropriate. Although it was considered that modern radiance-based methods like MDF (median daylight factor) and MDI (median daylight illuminance) may be helpful in some cases, they were not considered reliable substitutes for the Waldram methodology. No significant change, then, to how Rights of Light specialists are to measure light loss moving forward.
3) Injunction or damages
Mr Justice Fancourt decided against awarding an injunction in favour of negotiating damages, citing that demolition would significantly harm the developer, occupiers and public interest. An injunction may also be futile if the developer could subsequently apply to rebuild the development but, this time, with the benefit of the same protection under the Act as the rest of the site.
5) Assessment of damages
It was held that a hypothetical pre-construction negotiation that considered a fair share of uplift in development value gained by the developer, rather than diminution in value, was the appropriate measure of damages. The result? £350,000 for Cooper and £500,000 for Powell.
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