[2025] UKUT 00339 (LC)

An expert witness report on behalf of the applicants was submitted in December 2024 by Mr Mark Catley FRICS FAAV, a consultant at Cheffins, a firm of auctioneers, surveyors and estate agents based in Cambridge. Unfortunately, Mr Catley passed away in early 2025 and Mr Purkiss, a director at Cheffins stepped in to Mr Catley’s role as far as the hearing was concerned. Mr Purkiss reviewed Mr Catley’s report and provided a lengthy letter which he requested be considered in conjunction with the report. He said that the letter contained his thoughts on the case and additional evidence which he had used to form his opinion.

At the time of writing his report Mr Catley had over 43 years of experience as a chartered surveyor and was a former District Valuer for the East of England area. Mr Purkiss had also spent the early part of his career at the Valuation Office Agency and had qualified as a chartered surveyor in 2017.

Mr Catley’s report contained a description of the Land and its location, but he also recited the relevant legislation relating to restrictive covenants and some case law, primarily concerning decisions where compensation had been awarded. He valued the three houses in Brunswick Court at £975,000 to £1,000,000 each, having regard to nine comparables all of which were in Fulbourn.

Two of the comparable houses were listed as being on the market but without asking prices, the remainder were contained in a document headed ‘The Best Price Guide’ which was a list of transactions with properties shown as ‘sold, subject to contract’. This appeared to be based on information from the Rightmove website but with the very barest of details. The transactions took place between 14 February 2023 and 14 May 2024 and but for one property the floor areas were not shown. All were four or five bedroom detached houses, but unfortunately it was impossible to tell how Mr Catley had used the information to arrive at his opinion of value. Mr Purkiss confirmed that he had used the same information but with other additional transactions to confirm Mr Catley’s assessment of value as correct. He also said that he had used the floor areas for each property to arrive at a series of analyses to inform his judgement. None of this information was in his report and disappointingly he was no more forthcoming about it in response to questions from the Tribunal. Mr Purkiss stated that in his opinion all three houses in Brunswick Court had a value in the region of £1,000,000.

Mr Catley also examined whether compensation would be apposite were the Tribunal to modify the covenant. In his report he referred to two judgements from the Court of Appeal where in one case no compensation was awarded and a second where £2,250 was determined as appropriate. He also referred to a decision of the Tribunal relating to a house in Cambridge where a covenant was modified to allow the development of two houses on a site that originally contained just one. He did not identify the case. The compensation amounted to 3% of the value of the neighbouring house which had the benefit of the covenant. Mr Catley did not explain how these cases and the circumstances in each were relevant to the consideration of compensation in the case before the Tribunal. Mr Catley noted the positioning of the entrance to Farehurst Park and considered that the area in which the houses in Brunswick Court were situated would become busier as a result of the new development.

Mr Catley concluded that ‘in the normal scheme of things’ a further domestic property which would appear similar to the building it replaced would make very little difference to a prospective purchaser making a bid for one of the Brunswick Court properties. He considered that the access to Brunswick Court was very narrow and ‘the added issue of vehicles turning in and out of Brunswick Court would make things different’. He added that the impact on the bid of a hypothetical purchaser would be difficult to establish with any certainty. He described the Farehurst Park development as a significant factor and something which could not be discounted when deciding whether one more dwelling ‘in the mix’ would have a deleterious effect on value. In coming to his opinion on compensation he identified the disruption caused, presumably by the construction of the Bungalow, but he also referred to the ‘added difficulty of negotiating the narrow drive even now without the proposed bungalow’, an apparent reference to additional traffic generated by Farehurst Park. He considered the following diminution in value to be appropriate:

Mr Purkiss’s analysis of the impact of the construction and use of the Bungalow was more comprehensive than that of Mr Catley. He commented on three factors; privacy, disturbance from construction works and vehicular movements. He also considered the likelihood of additional development in Brunswick Court.

In relation to privacy Mr Purkiss assumed that Mr and Mrs Cucknall at 1 Brunswick Court would be able to view the garden and western elevation of the Bungalow from the first floor windows of their house. They are already affected by vehicular and pedestrian traffic along Brunswick Court. Mr and Mrs Simpson and Mr and Mrs Li-Yan-Hui at numbers 2 and 3 would be able to see the upper elevations and ridgeline of the Bungalow but it would, to some extent be screened by the existing planting and vegetation. The siting of the Bungalow to the east of the position of the Workshop would, said Mr Purkiss, be beneficial for numbers 2 and 3. He did not explain why that would be the case. He observed that the rear elevations and gardens of the three Brunswick Court houses were overlooked by the first floor windows of properties on Alec Ralph Close and Thomas Road which are located to the rear. At the time of my inspection foliage provided a degree of screening but in the winter months Mr Purkiss’s observation would be correct.

Mr Purkiss was of the opinion that the occupants of Brunswick Court would experience some disruption during the construction of the Bungalow, resulting from increased vehicular traffic, deliveries, the presence of trades people and general disturbance. He agreed with the timeframe for construction proffered by Mr Baker but thought that the whole construction period including demolition would extend to 9-12 months. He considered that the early parts of the project would be the noisiest. The planning permission for the Bungalow specified that a traffic management plan for the construction period would need to be in place before building operations started. No such plan was produced in evidence and Mr Purkiss said that such matters were outside his experience and expertise.

Mr Purkiss also considered that in comparison to the current level of vehicular movements, the occupation of the Bungalow was likely to lead to an increase, but he thought that the occupants would go no further along Brunswick Court to gain access to their parking area than Mr Baker did to park at the Workshop.

Finally, he examined the prospect of additional development in Brunswick Court. He concluded that the scale of the properties at 1-3 Brunswick Court and the size of the plots limited the scope for additional properties.

Having thoroughly reviewed Mr Catley’s report Mr Purkiss agreed that the legislation and case law referred to by Mr Catley was relevant. He also endorsed Mr Catley’s compensation figures but without explaining how the sums had been calculated, a telling omission bearing in mind that the figures fell within a range of 0.5 to 1.0% of the value of the affected buildings.