Arsenal masterplanner wins £300,000 damages claim

Christian Metcalfe 19/10/2009 14:20

A company owned by Antony Spencer, the man who masterplanned Arsenal’s stadium regeneration and acted as agent and developer for the club, has won a £300,000 High Court damages claim.

Following a three–day trial, Stadium Capital Holdings, which owns a development site in Hampstead, succeeded in its trespass claim against a neighbour that had erected an advertising hoarding on an adjoining building at 279a Finchley Road.

In 1976, the leaseholder of the adjoining premises ,St Marylebone Property Company (SMPC), with the benefit of planning permission, had erected an advertising hoarding on the boundary wall and granted various licences to advertising companies to display advertisements on it.

However, in 2004, Stadium Capital’s predecessor gave SMPC notice to remove the hoarding that it considered to be trespassing into the airspace of the development site.

Subsequently, the hoarding was removed but Stadium Capital, which bought the development site in 2008, sought damages for trespass from the date of the expiry of the notice to remove and the actual day of removal, calculated by reference to the sums received by SMPC during that period.

Sir Donald Rattee dismissed SMPC’s claim that it had acquired the space by way of adverse possession and ordered that Stadium Capital should receive £313,972 in damages for the trespass.

Stadium Capital Holdings (No 2) Ltd v St Marylebone Property Company plc and another Chancery Division (Sir  Donal Rattee, sitting as a High Court judge) 15 October 2009.

John Furber QC (instructed by Thring Townsend Lee & Pembertons, of Bath) appeared for the claimant; Kirk Reynolds QC (instructed by St Marylebone Property Company plc) appeared for the first defendant.