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> More Cracking News, End to legal battle “imminent” as High Court deadline looms
Simon Kirby
post May 28 2014, 05:30 PM
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The NWN reports today that "End to town council’s legal battle “imminent” as High Court deadline looms".

"AN END to Newbury Town Council’s legal battle with Parkway contractor Costain is expected “imminently”, according to council leader Julian Swift-Hook.

It follows questions posed by the Newbury Weekly News as to whether the statute of limitations – legislation which states the maximum time legal proceedings can begin after an incident – could come into force in August."

A few queries:

It's not actually a legal battle yet, is it. For all their bluster and posturing, the town council have not to my knowledge issued a claim in the county court, and it isn't clear (and has not been clearly reported) whether the council have written their pre-action protocol letter before action. It would be good to know about this because it's an objective fact and not something the council can bluster about.

But the substantive thing about deadlines imposed by the statute of limitations (that's the Limitations Act 1980 isn't it?) is that Section 2. sets a six year deadline for tort running from when the damage was caused, so that gives the council until August 2017 doesn't it?

Section 14A relaxes that deadline for cases when the damage isn't immediately discovered and allows either six years from from when the damage was caused or three years from when the damage was discovered, whicher is the later, so that's still August 2017?

Have I missed something?

"Mr Swift-Hook (Lib Dem, Pyle Hill), said the council was seeking legal advice over whether the statute of limitations was based on the date the initial legal claim was made, when work started on the site or when water extraction began or concluded."

But if it's six years then why bother taking legal advice if none of those events is getting close to the limit? And are they really still going to be faffing around with this in August, four years after the de-watering?

Isn't it time to either litigate or drop the claim? The council need to publish the hydrogeological reports and let the public see the basis on which the council have spend the best part of £90k pursuing the complaint. As reported in NewburyToday in December 2010 "With an initial estimate of £20,000 quoted to restore the once glorious greens of Newbury's bowling club, and £10,000 to fix the Park Way wall, the repair bill could run into six figures." - it would have been very much cheaper and quicker just to pay for the repairs then wouldn't it.


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Cognosco
post May 28 2014, 05:54 PM
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Well I think we can now say goodbye to the Newt Type greet with the local Lib Dems now then Simon? rolleyes.gif


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MontyPython
post May 28 2014, 06:11 PM
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QUOTE (Cognosco @ May 28 2014, 06:54 PM) *
Well I think we can now say goodbye to the Newt Type greet with the local Lib Dems now then Simon? rolleyes.gif


Hopefully we'll be saying goodbye to the Lib dems
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Andy Capp
post May 28 2014, 06:20 PM
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I'm not sure the alternative is anything to look forward too either; it was their SNAFU in the first place.
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Simon Kirby
post May 28 2014, 06:27 PM
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NewburyToday is illustrating the story with a picture of the damage:


That doesn't look like £100,000 of damage to me, and I can't recall seeing any other images of anything like that scale of damage. Was there really anything in this whole malarky?

I don't know if this is damage that the council are alleging was caused by the dewatering, but you can see from the straight line of the new railing on the right against the undulating grade of the path that the path has moved in previous years, and likewise form the grass growing in the broken edge of the path it's obvious that the path has been breaking up for some years, and I saw cracking just like this in the paths of the park in Wash Common that year, caused by the excessively hot summer, so I just don't buy the whole damage thing.


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Andy Capp
post May 28 2014, 06:40 PM
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It is a shame that West Berkshire Council failed to make good records and measurements of the environment before works commenced.
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Simon Kirby
post May 28 2014, 06:59 PM
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QUOTE (Andy Capp @ May 28 2014, 07:40 PM) *
It is a shame that West Berkshire Council failed to make good records and measurements of the environment before works commenced.

It's my guess that Costain took readings of the level of the groundwater before the work started, and that those data are in the hydrogeological report - it's a shame we can't see the report.


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On the edge
post May 28 2014, 07:30 PM
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As the case is so just and solid JUST GET ON WITH IT!

Does this call into question the competence of the legal advice the town council is getting?


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Andy Capp
post May 28 2014, 08:08 PM
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It is an even bigger shame that West Berkshire Council are allowing the tin pot local council run with this faux pas. WBC should be the ones dealing with this. Add this SNAFU to the 'Marsh Lane' voting attitude of the Tories, the more cynical amongst us might start to wonder.
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NWNREADER
post May 28 2014, 09:06 PM
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I rather suspect this could be similar to Marsh Lane...... It fits all the shenanigans. I could be totally wrong of course.
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Simon Kirby
post May 29 2014, 02:30 PM
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QUOTE (On the edge @ May 29 2014, 09:35 AM) *
Another interesting issue, perhaps one worth pursing, does the Council not have insurance cover? For an undoubted risk adverse organisation, they ought to, or is this held by the landlord, our very own WBC! AndyC, you have been quite right signing up their complicity throughout this debate.

Has the insurance question been raised before - I don't remember so. If there was insurance then I would have expected the council to just hand the whole thing over to their insurers who could either take the contractors to task or just pay for the damage themselves, all without any hassle to the town council or the tax-payer.

Perhaps a question the NWN would like to put to the council: did you make a claim on your insurance, and was there any insurance to make a claim against?


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Andy Capp
post May 29 2014, 04:24 PM
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I'd like to add to that and ask the NWN to ask WBC why they have appeared to do dilly squat about it all.
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Simon Kirby
post Jun 10 2014, 05:22 PM
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The latest news from NTC: No news.

QUOTE
Newbury Town Council is continuing to do everything in its power to achieve a successful outcome to the long running dispute on who and what is responsible for damage to walls, paths and playing surfaces in Victoria Park.
There continues to be a variety of public speculation on eventual outcomes, which is understandable given that the Town Council is still not able legally to publish the various reports that make up its evidence of the claim.
The Town Council remains committed to sharing any information it can in due course, while ensuring the best possible outcome for the taxpayers of Newbury.
The actual pace of progress remains in the hands of others, and is also influenced by the complexity of the case.
We can say that there have been recent, and in the Town Council's view, positive, discussions, in attempts by all parties to avoid further significant legal costs that an actual court case would bring. But we remain committed to take all required action, in the event of a settlement not being reached before the limitation date.


It's certainly less pugnacious than the usual town council missive and that is to be welcomed, and it says that the town council understands the public speculation which council-watchers will note to be a significant departure from the usual arrogant rhetoric of accusing critics of being vexatious and peddling misinformation and lies, though it is still a million miles away from actually engaging with the criticism and that is going to need a wholesale clearout at the council before we get there.

But the substantive point is that the town council is not at all committed to sharing information. The council has offered no credible justification for refusing to disclose the confidentiality agreement that they say obliges them to keep the hydrogeological reports secret. They are obliged to disclose the confidentiality agreement under the Freedom of information Act, and the council just chooses not to, and the most obvious reason for doing that is that the agreement doesn't exist or doesn't restrict disclosure as they say and that there is no good reason to withould the hydrogeological reports.

The argument the council put forward for withholding the hydrogeological reports is miserably poor. They haven't even handled the request for the reports under the right legislation and have ignored the fact that the draw-down of the ground water that they blame for the alleged damage is an environmental emission and as such the duty to disclose overrides any third-party commercial interest or supposed confidentiality because the Environmental Information Regulations place such a great weight on the need of the public to understand the nature of environmental emissions.

They have presented the hydrogeological reports to the third-party contractor so it is simply insulting that they withhold those reports from public scrutiny when they were commissioned with our money - and when public scrutiny may well find that the council have spent the best part of £100k on a wild goose chase.

I see every likelihood of the council throwing the towel in shortly and claiming a successful settlement but refusing to say exactly what that settlement is because it doesn't even cover their legal costs which are already more that the cost of repairing the alleged damage.

Surely we've had enough spin now - just disclose the reports and let us decide for ourselves how prudent the council has been.


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