Case No. HT-11-503

211.I do not accept the substance of paragraph 6.1(a) of Mr Barber’s witness statement for two separate reasons. 212.First, as indicated in paragraphs 25-26 above, it seems to me that any confusion over opening dates, following the second inundation, was the responsibility of Brit Inns’ themselves. In what I consider to be a passage of oral evidence that grossly over-stated this part of the case, Mr Barber said:“…the locals lost confidence in us because we kept suffering inundation after inundation, and then we were given dates which we couldn’t make. So by the time we finally opened – and we weren’t even sure until the day we opened what day we would open – we couldn’t do any more marketing, and people got fed up with it.”213.I simply fail to see how, other than the initial delay caused by the second inundation, any of the matters suggested by Mr Barber (even if true) could be the responsibility of the defendants. Following the second inundation, once the remedial work scheme had been indentified and agreed, Brit Inns could have worked out how long that work would have taken, and how long the subsequent reinstatement fit-out works would take, and then calculated when the new opening would be. Thus, there would simply have been one planned reopening date, with none of the confusion and muddle to which Mr Barber refers.214.I have already referred above to the absence of any schedule of work and the absence of any programme, and the fact that everything was done on a very ad hoc basis. This happened both for the original fit-out and the reinstatement fit-out works. On neither occasion did Brit Inns work towards a clear and publicised opening date. There is no evidence of opening dates being identified and then subsequently being scrapped. I therefore find as a fact that there was no confusion as to the proposed opening date in October 2007 and that, if there was, that was entirely of Brit Inns’ making.215.Secondly, I do not accept as a matter of fact that there were rumours going round Teddington about the new business. Of course, evidence of rumours is difficult to identify at the best of times, but in the present case, other than Mr Barber’s bald assertion, there was no evidence of any kind to support the suggestion. Because of my general concerns regarding the credibility of Mr Barber’s evidence (see above, and in particular his untrue evidence about the claims for work done on his houseboat), I do not accept his unsubstantiated statement about the alleged rumours.216.Thirdly, Brit Inns were always running a risk that the new business would fail, because The Royal Oak was first deliberately run down, and then demolished and rebuilt, meaning that, even if they had re-opened in December 2006, they would not have been trading for well over a year. There was always the risk that, because of this delay, their old customers would have found somewhere new in the interim.217.Fourthly, and perhaps most importantly of all, it was quite impossible to see how the alleged rumours prior to October 2007 meant that, when The Oak opened, people did not go to the restaurant in the numbers anticipated. As was apparent from the cross-examination of Mr Barber on this point, the alleged rumours before the opening could not logically explain why people did not go to The Oak after it had opened. In fact, people did go but, having been once or twice, then stopped going (see below at paragraphs 241 and 242). That was nothing to do with the defendants.218.In essence, there was no explanation of how and why the delay, the uncertainty, or the gossip (even if true, which I do not accept), meant that people decided that they would ignore the restaurant at The Oak from October 2007. There was nothing in this evidence of rumour and gossip which could justify the assertion that the actual profit figures when The Oak did open were in some way irrelevant to the calculation of the loss of profit claim.