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Court decision leaves couple facing massive legal bills
Published: 27 February 2012
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A COUPLE who said their lives had been made a misery by the racket from a nearby stadium and motor cycle track near their West Row home are facing financial ruin after their case hit the buffers today.
Fireman Raymond Shields and his partner Katherine Lawrence of Fenland, Cooks Drove, argued the cacophony of noise from Mildenhall Stadium and motocross track blighted their daily lives - but are now facing enormous lawyers’ bills after their marathon legal campaign ended in failure at London’s Appeal Court.
But in a decision with far-reaching implications for land use, three judges ruled the stadium and track, both of which have planning permission, are “an established part of the character of the locality” and, despite the noise, did not amount to a “nuisance” in law.
The ruling means Mr Shields and Ms Lawrence will be stripped of a £20,000 damages pay out they were awarded by a judge last year and face having to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds in legal costs bills.
They must pay costs of £85,000 on account straight away, but that is likely to be only a small fraction of their eventual bill.
Lord Justice Jackson said the stress and cost of the couple’s two-and-a-half-year struggle through the courts were both “huge”, and told the court: “The outcome of this litigation will be a disaster for the claimants, a fact which I regret”.
But he added: “On the other hand, their predicament is a consequence of their decision to purchase a house in an area where motor sports were an established activity”.
The couple are adamant that, when they bought their home,just 500 metres from the track, in January 2006, they were blissfully unaware that speedway, stock car racing, banger racing and motocross were going on nearby.
But Lord Justice Jackson said that was “most surprising” when all relevant planning permissions, going back to 1975, and certificates of lawful use were available for inspection on the local authority’s register.
And he observed: “It is a matter of prudence, indeed basic common sense, to inspect that register before purchasing a property in a rural location”.
Whilst emphasising that he was making no finding of dishonesty against Mr Shields or Ms Lawrence, the judge said the motor sports use “was or should have been apparent to the purchasers and the purchasers’ professional advisers”.
Dismissing the couple’s damages action, the judge, sitting with Lords Justice Mummery and Lewison, concluded: “The noise of motor sports emanating from the track and the stadium are an established part of the character of the locality”.
In a High Court ruling last year, Judge Richard Seymour QC dismissed claims that incidents of “harassment” the couple said they suffered due to the stand they took over noise could be pinned on any of those involved in owning or operating the venue.
The court was told the couple’s cars in Fenland’s driveway were attacked by a forklift truck in the early hours of April 21 2010. An oil tank was fractured during the incident, sending heating oil flowing into the bungalow.
That resulted in Mr Shields and Ms Lawrence, a management consultant, leaving their home and, in their absence, on June 11 2010, the bungalow was badly damaged by fire - a blaze which the couple claimed was “caused deliberately”.
However, Judge Seymour said there was “not a scrap of evidence” as to the identity of the forklift truck driver and it was “simply not good enough” for the couple to say that the owners or operators of the venue were implicated.
Dismissing the couple’s claim for “aggravated” and “exemplary” damages, the judge said he could reach no conclusion on the cause of the fire at Fenland.
However, the judge went on to award the couple more than £20,000 damages against David Coventry, one of the stadium’s freehold owners, and Moto-Land UK Ltd, which operates the motocross track. That payout was overturned by the Appeal Court today.
The couple’s first complaints about the noise were lodged with Forest Heath District Council three months after they moved into Fenland and Mr Shields even built a straw bale wall around the house to prevent his peace and quiet being ruined.
However, Lord Justice Jackson said planning permission for the stadium, the home of the Fen Tigers speedway team, was granted as long ago as 1975; local authorities were “supportive” of the venue and planing consent for the motocross track followed in 2002.
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Hopefully Croft will also get the same ruling.
The similar action brought against the owner of Croft motor racing circuit was worse. IIRC the claim was made by the owners ex wife and her new husband who were living in what was the owners and his ex wife's matrimonial home. So she knew all about the noise from the circuit!
If they'd bought a house and then someone later came along and built a racetrack next to it then fair enough. But if you buy a house next to an established track, it's hard to be sympathetic when they subsequently try to get the track closed. If it's that bad, it's your mistake, move.
Was the track actually in place when they moved in, or did they just fail to check planning permission?
That's fantastic - buy a house then moan about the noise from the pre-existing track that meets its consents. Weird. Had the same thing for a while here where people bought inner city flats then complained about the noise from bars, went for a while and then someone got a big flat NO when they moaned about the noise of a bar they bought a flat above. It met all its license restrictions and was under the noise thresholds so the judge threw it out and suggested that if you move into the city you can't expect a rural experience !
This one one of the funniest I have heard of.
If they'd bought a house and then someone later came along and built a racetrack next to it then fair enough
no really - then you'd have to complain at the planning stage...
Residents of Frodsham and Helsby resently complained about new wind turbines being built on ince marshes due to the visiual effect it may have, they failed to notice the largest producer of Chlorine gas , down the river,a huge automated glass bottle making plan, a major airport,and one of the largest oil refineries in the uk nopt to mention a few rail lines, and the manchester ship canal,along with a major motorway and probably lots more.
Residents of Frodsham and Helsby resently complained about new wind turbines being built on ince marshes due to the visiual effect it may have, they failed to notice the largest producer of Chlorine gas , down the river,a huge automated glass bottle making plan, a major airport,and one of the largest oil refineries in the uk nopt to mention a few rail lines, and the manchester ship canal,along with a major motorway and probably lots more.
That has all been part of the landscape as long as I can remember and in it's own way has a certain beauty. I can remember watching the Stanlow flares as a nipper, it's a part of my life and I'm sure many others feel the same.
Now that TJ story is particularly funny.
England is a strange place.
Happens in Scotland as well SBZ
Just looked up the original place on google maps.
[url= http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=IP28+8QU&hl=en&ll=52.360768,0.458851&spn=0.028462,0.084543&sll=51.799922,-0.275529&sspn=0.007205,0.021136&hnear=IP28+8QU,+United+Kingdom&t=h&z=14&source=gplus-ogsb ]Quiet rural idyll :D[/url]
Davidjones, youll also remember the Ince A and B powerstations, one oil burning and probably polluting, then there is the fertilizer factory, producing a huge flume of vapour every day and lots more stuff
[b]davidjones15[/b] - That has all been part of the landscape as long as I can remember and in it's own way has a certain beauty. I can remember watching the Stanlow flares as a nipper, it's a part of my life and I'm sure many others feel the same.
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Davidjones, youll also remember the Ince A and B powerstations, one oil burning and probably polluting, then there is the fertilizer factory, producing a huge flume of vapour every day and lots more stuff
I never said it was good, healthy or smelled good, just that it was part of an upringing and we will resist or react against change.
Yes, if the noise from the race track doesn't keep you awake, the KC-135 tankers or the F-15's will.
gwaelod, isn't that a still from Bladerunner?
There's a lady at the local gym I'm a member of.. one of these rabid liberal, saviour of the minority types.. She sits earwigging on every conversation, jumping in on any conversation or comment she deems none 'pc'. Regularly throws the usual racist, or whatever'phobic slur at anyone who crosses her.
A couple of months ago she was on one of her (what I thought) usual rants.. She's just learned that a traveller site was planned 100 metres from her leafy suburban home and was livid
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Oh how I LOVED telling her I have many traveller friends and viewed her opinion as wrong.
I'm over the moon that the principle of justice laid down by Denning all those years ago in his dissenting judgement finally seems to have been underwritten 😀
The legal fans will know what I'm on about 😉
[i]In summertime village cricket is the delight of everyone. Nearly every village has its own cricket field where the young men play and the old men watch...[/i]
[*]Have to say, TJ's story looks like abuse of Police powers to me.
Don't you just love predictive text? 😉
I live a lot less than 500m away from a speedway track, and like trains, roads and fightpaths you forget about it after a while. Speedway isn't even [i]that[/i] loud, and races are very short: the total time the engines are 'bwarping' can't be any more than 15 minutes in a whole evening's racing at ours. I have never actually been mind, but I like that there is another 'something else to do' round here besides drinking and fighting, loads of families go together.