QB-2022-002451 - [2025] EWHC 2204 (KB)

At around 19.55 on 5 September 2019, Mr Brown, the Claimant was cycling home from work. He travelled along a cycle lane on Pitfield Street, London located next to a construction site. That construction site was a large one, operated by Morgan Sindall Construction & Infrastructure Ltd, the Defendant. As part of the construction work, the relevant part of Pitfield Street had been closed to motorised vehicles and a different layout of the cycle route established: a two-way cycle lane within one carriageway of the road.

The Claimant fell from his bike. It was immediately apparent that he had sustained an injury to his elbow. Emergency services were called, and he was taken to hospital. He lost a significant amount of blood and required a blood transfusion. He underwent surgery, and was able to leave hospital and return home some 4 days later.

The Claimant now seeks compensation from the Defendant in respect of the injury and losses he alleges he sustained in consequence of their asserted negligence or the nuisance he asserts they created on the highway and, which he asserts caused the accident. His case was that the accident occurred because his bike collided with the base of a traffic bollard which was on road, and from which the cylinder wand had been removed, leaving the base as an unmarked hazard on the road.

The Defendant denied any negligence or causing any nuisance. The Defendant denied that, even if the Claimant had collided with the base of a bollard placed by them (or their contractors), on the highway and, that that caused the accident, that any liability for that accident attached to them in respect of it. It contended that the configuration of the traffic management system had been implemented on the advice of a specialist contractor, Amber Langis, and that that which had been implemented was in accordance with that ‘approved’ or stipulated by London Borough of Hackney Council (LBHC) and Transport for London (TfL). It also asserted that it had complied with the 2013 Safety at Street Works and Road Works Code of Practice (often referred to as “the Red Book” during the trial). Significantly, it also asserted that the Claimant has, as a minimum, significantly exaggerated, alternatively been dishonest, fundamentally so, about the extent of the injuries and losses he sustained.