HT-2022-000092 - [2024] EWHC 3184 (TCC)

Glanville’s performance and alleged breach/negligence (Issue 4)

Glanville’s First Report was issued, in final form, on 24 July 2014. It was said to be a Phase 1 Geo-Environmental Assessment. The introduction provided, with emphasis added, that:

“1.1

This report has been prepared by Glanville Consultants on behalf of Darcliffe Homes and Horstonbridge (Thames Valley) Ltd to support the promotion, through West Berkshire Council’s Site Allocation and Delivery Development Plan, of Stonehams Farm for residential development.

1.2

This report has been prepared in accordance with the National Planning Policy Framework Section 11 and Model Procedures for the Management of Land Contamination (CLR11) to assess if there is any potential risk to the site.

1.3

The report identifies previous land uses and findings from unintrusive environmental and geological searches for the purpose of identifying issues that may adversely affect the development of the site for its intended end use.”

The core of the report was, so far as relevant, as follows, and again with emphasis added, under the heading “Site geology”:

“4.1

Geological maps published by the British Geological Survey (BGS) indicate that the site is likely to be underlain by a superficial stratum of a Winter Hill Gravel consisting of sand and gravel from the Anglian period. The mapping also indicates that the site is likely to be underlain by a bedrock stratum of Lambeth Group Formation consisting of clay, silt and sand from the Paleocene period. Geological maps are included in Appendix F for reference…

4.4

BGS borehole records are a record of boreholes, shafts and wells from all forms of drilling site investigation works. The borehole data sheet sourced from the BGS holds one recorded borehole on-site (BGS reference Su67se592), which has a recorded drill length of 2.7m. The BGS borehole data sheet is included in Appendix G for reference.

4.5

The borehole log described above is available to view on the BGS website. The borehole record indicates 0.15m of topsoil over a geology consisting of firm brown, very silty, sandy clay with some gravel…

4.8

Natural cavities, such as sinkholes, swallow holes and solution pipes are indicated to be located within a 1000m radius of the site. None are indicated to be located within the site …

4.10

Potential for collapsible and compressible ground stability hazards are indicated to be very low and no hazard respectively. Soft materials such as clay are vulnerable if overloaded or if ground water levels change and can result in materials collapsing or compressing.

4.11

Ground dissolution occurs when water passes through soluble rock and produces underground cavities. These cavities reduce support to the ground above. Rocks that commonly suffer with dissolution stability hazards are salt, gypsum, limestone and chalk. It is indicated that the sites geology is at a low from ground dissolution.

4.12

Landslides are dependent on such factors as geology, topography, weathering, drainage and manmade construction. The risk of damage to properties on the site from landslides is indicated to be very low.”

As is apparent from the above text, Glanville attached to their report a good deal of publicly available information about, inter alia, ground conditions. In particular, Appendix A was a report from a company called Envirocheck, who set out extensive information as to previous ground investigations at or near the Site.

The reader of Glanville’s First Report would have been satisfied that the Site did not present any significant problems in regard to the ground conditions. Indeed, section 9 stated that:

“9.0

Conclusion and Recommendations…

9.4

The site and surrounding area is indicated to be underlain by a Winter Hill Gravel over Lambeth Group Formation…

9.8

In conclusion, the conceptual model has demonstrated that there should be no significant geo-environmental issues that would prevent the site from being redeveloped for its intended use.

9.9

This conceptual model should be reviewed and developed following the results of any intrusive ground investigations.”

In summary, Glanville’s First Report gave a clean bill of health so far as the Phase 1 Geo-Environmental Assessment was concerned, albeit that Darcliffe were well aware that this assessment would have to be reviewed and developed following the anticipated Phase 2 investigation.

Glanville’s Second Report was in materially identical terms and did nothing to dispel the impression created by the First Report.

The question for me, therefore, is whether this clean bill of health was compatible with the exercise of reasonable skill and care. Mr Raison, the expert witness called by Darcliffe, expressed the view that Glanville had “failed the test of reasonable competence”. His reasoning was as follows, in summary:

“viii)

In my view, Glanville Consultants should have reviewed and taken full account of the sensible guidance and advice given by CIRIA C574, that the presence of dissolution features should always be assumed when designing foundations for all sites underlain by calcium carbonate-rich Chalk. Glanville Consultants could have added just a single line to their report giving a suitable warning about the possibility of Chalk dissolution features. The absence of this warning is a major failing by Glanville Consultants

ix)

The Envirocheck report included tabulated records of observed Chalk dissolution features for five locations in the vicinity of the site where the geology is essentially similar to that found on the Stoneham Farm site. Glanville Consultants should have reviewed this data, carried out their own analysis and made their own conclusions. This would have been a straightforward due diligence check.

x)

In my opinion, if Glanville Consultants had competently reviewed and analysed the Envirocheck data and hazard ratings, they would have concluded that there was a significant chance that similar dissolution features could exist below the site footprint, but these had just never previously been identified.

xi)

In my opinion, Glanville Consultants should also have referenced the Chalk natural cavities database and obtained a written site assessment report as a due diligence check on the Envirocheck data. Not doing so was yet another failure by Glanville Consultants.

xii)

There is no question that any reasonably competent Geologist, Geotechnical Engineer or Specialist Consultant dealing with the ground should have been able to identify not only that the Seaford Chalk was present below the whole of the site footprint but also to have been aware of the inherent risks associated with engineering and construction in Chalk. Glanville Consultants clearly failed to do either.”

I was impressed by Mr Raison’s evidence, which I thought to be fair and well balanced. I agree with his conclusions, for the reasons which I will now set out.

As a preliminary point, it should be noted that Glanville were able to offer little assistance as to how they had gone about their task. Glanville’s First Report was prepared by Jordan Rayner. Although Glanville’s First Report purports to deal with geotechnical matters in some detail, Ms Rayner confirms in her statement (see paragraph 8) that she is not in fact a geotechnical engineer. She says that her areas of specialism are “highways and drainage infrastructure design and project management”. Ms Rayner produced a witness statement but was unable to attend the trial: her evidence was admitted pursuant to the Civil Evidence Act.

The Second Glanville Report was authored by James O’Kelly. Little is known about Mr O’Kelly’s qualifications and experience, and he has not produced a statement in this litigation.

These considerations lead to my first reason for accepting the evidence of Mr Raison, namely that Glanville have been unable to proffer any real explanation for providing the clean bill of health mentioned above. On the contrary, so far as the evidence goes, Glanville do not seem to have assessed the ground conditions at all. Ms Rayner states:

“For a Phase 1 report, I could receive up to 600 pages of material from Envirocheck. When producing a Phase 1 report, I would translate this into a readable report. It was not my own assessment, I was simply collating and repeating information and providing a summary of the Envirocheck information in a readable, accessible form for the client, together with appendices that contained the key raw data and materials we had obtained from Envirocheck.”

In this regard, Glanville submitted that I should not be too concerned with “process”, provided that the process, even if susceptible to criticism, produced a non-negligent result. In some professional negligence claims this may well be so. However, in the present case, I think that the process and the result are inextricably interwoven. Glanville, in the person of Ms Rayner, did not really carry out any analysis of the ground conditions, the very job they were engaged to perform, with the result that Darcliffe received no such analysis.

Secondly, and following on from this lack of analysis of the Envirocheck materials, Glanville simply did not engage with the fact that the Site and its environs were underlain by chalk. If they had done so, they should have gone on to tell Darcliffe that whether or not dissolution features were actually present, their presence should be assumed until proved otherwise. Alternatively, they should have, at least, warned of the potential hazards flowing from the presence of such features nearby.

Thirdly, it seemed to be that Dr O’Riordan was anxious in his written evidence to give Glanville the benefit of the doubt, perhaps to an over generous extent. However, in the course of cross-examination, he accepted, realistically, that the advice given had not been adequate: see, for example, his evidence on day 4 at pp. 102/9 to 105/7 and 109/3 to 116/21.

Fourthly, the criticisms made by Mr Raison were largely supported by Dr Smith, the expert instructed by GWL. I did not hear from Dr Smith during the trial, but had the benefit of his observations in the Final Summary Report of Without Prejudice Joint Discussions Between Experts dated May 2024. In this document Mr Raison and Dr Smith were largely ad idem, whilst Dr O’Riordan sought to take a different path based upon his perception of the factual evidence. I did not find this convincing, for the reasons expressed by the other experts at item 5.2 of this document:

“Mr Chris Raison does not understand the claim by Dr Nick O’Riordan that there is ambiguity in the Witness Statement prepared by Jordan Rayner...”

For all these reasons, I accept that Darcliffe have shown that Glanville were in breach of the duties identified above.