[2023] UKUT 189 (LC)

The applicant holds the lease of two redundant warehouses in a part of Manchester which is rapidly being developed as an area of modern, high-density housing. It wants to demolish the warehouses and, at a cost of £300 million, to replace them with two 56-storey tower blocks containing 1037 flats. But the applicant faces three problems. First, the unexpired term of the lease has just under 61 years to run (which is too short to enable any flats it completes to be sold on mortgageable leases). Secondly, the lease includes a series of covenants which prevent the redevelopment of the warehouses without the consent of its landlord, Manchester City Council (‘the Council’). And, thirdly, the Council is willing to consent to the redevelopment, but only on terms which the applicant considers unacceptable.

The applicant’s solution, at least to the second of these problems, has been to apply to the Tribunal under section 84, Law of Property Act 1925, for the modification or discharge of eleven covenants to enable the redevelopment to be carried out without the consent of its landlord. It is submitted on its behalf that it will then be able to complete the project using only its own money and that, rather than selling it on, it will be in a position to hold the development, letting the individual flats on short tenancies at rack rents, before the land reverts to the Council at the expiry of the term.

The redundant warehouses are at 34 Great Jackson Street (the Site), from which the applicant derives its name.

At the hearing of the application the applicant was represented by Mr Martin Hutchings KC, and the Council by Ms Elisabeth Tythcott. We are grateful to them both for their submissions.