HT-2022-000311 & HT-2022-000254 - [2024] EWHC 3179 (TCC)

Lastly, the leaseholders advanced their claims (both in respect of individual losses and the cost of remedial works) in nuisance. This basis of claim is a yet further alternative; it adds nothing; and I do not consider it further.

Additionally, it was pleaded and argued on behalf of the leaseholders that the water ingress and its consequences gave rise to a statutory nuisance there was a statutory nuisance, under section 79(1)(a) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, as the damp and mould posed a risk to health. The remedy for statutory nuisance is the service of an abatement notice by the local authority (under section 80), failure to comply with which amounts to an offence and/or proceedings in the magistrates court by person aggrieved by the existence of a statutory nuisance. No case was advance as to how any such statutory nuisance gave rise to civil liability and no authority for such a proposition was cited. Again this was entirely an alterative basis of claim and not material in any event.