More Cracking News, End to legal battle “imminent” as High Court deadline looms Options

[Simon Kirby]

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.