[2024] UKUT 62 (LC)

Ferry Street is a pleasant street in Docklands, lined with town houses and rich in history; the pub on the corner dates from 1737. The street takes its name from the Ferry that plied between the southern tip of the Isle of Dogs and Greenwich; the first documented mention of a ferry across the Thames in this location was in 1450 but it is thought to be older. Some two hundred years later the ferry was mentioned by Samuel Pepys in his diary, and it eventually closed for business in 1892. That, however, is not the end of the story, as during World War Two the Greenwich Foot Tunnel was damaged by a German bomb and the ferry was temporarily reinstated, a pier being created from some redundant barges.

This application is for the modification, pursuant to section 84 of the Law of Property Act 1925, of a covenant that burdens eleven freehold houses on Ferry Street but forming part of the St David’s Square development, which is a mix of freehold houses and leasehold flats. The owners of the application properties wish to extend the living accommodation into the roof space and create full width dormer extensions which will face west, looking into the development, and to extend their ground floors. Each house is burdened by a covenant:

We refer to that as the “alterations covenant”. It is not in dispute that there is a building scheme across St David’s Square so that the alterations covenant benefits and is enforceable by the owners of the other houses and flats in the development, 104 of whom are the first group of objectors as well as by the freeholders of the estate other than the houses, who are the second objectors.

We inspected the application properties in the afternoon of 11 January 2024. We viewed them both from Ferry Street and from within the development, and we saw inside two of the properties. We also walked around the wider development and some of the surrounding streets. We were granted access to a number of flats in the development and we inspected the communal facilities in Consort House.

The applicants were represented by Mr Stephen Jourdan KC and Mr Michael Ranson, and Mr Liam Spender represented the first group of objectors; we are grateful to them all. The second objectors were not represented at the hearing.