Bankside Yards and beyond: rights to light update for developers

• 16 July 2025
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Much has been written about Cooper v Ludgate House Limited [2025] EWHC 1724 (Ch), otherwise known as the “Bankside Yards” case — the most significant rights to light decision in recent years. 
The claimants — leaseholders of flats in Bankside Lofts, London SE1 — sought an injunction requiring the partial demolition of a newly constructed office building known as “Arbor”, or alternatively, damages for interference with their rights to light.

The judgment spans a number of areas and provides welcome clarity on how the courts are likely to approach these claims going forward. But what are the key points for developers and those advising them?

The court favoured the Waldram method over modern alternatives

The court considered whether the traditional Waldram method (which measures whether at least 50% of a room receives a minimum level of sky visibility at working plane height, as a proxy for sufficient natural light) for assessing rights to light remains reliable, and whether newer methods such as Radiance-based assessments (a modern, computer-based approach that models actual daylight levels in a room using climate-based data and visual simulation) are more appropriate.

 
While the court acknowledged criticisms of the Waldram method—such as its reliance on a uniform overcast sky model and its low threshold for sufficient light—the court noted that it remains the industry standard, widely used and endorsed by RICS. It has been used for over a century and is still the primary tool for assessing rights to light.

The judge concluded that while Radiance methods can provide useful supplementary information—especially in marginal cases—they should not replace the Waldram method. The Radiance methods, particularly when interpreted through subjective analysis of false colour images, risk substituting a long-established and calibrated standard with subjective interpretation. In this case, the Waldram results were consistent with the Radiance results, reinforcing their reliability. Therefore, the court found that the Waldram method remains a sound basis for assessing whether there has been a substantial interference with rights to light.

Why the court declined to grant an injunction

The claimants requested an injunction, which would have required the structure of Arbor to be cut back. The court held that it had a broad discretion as to whether to grant an injunction or damages, but that the legal burden to persuade it to grant damages lay with the developer. 

The court refused the injunction. The following factors were relevant:

• practical difficulties of enforcing it due to Arbor’s commercial tenants not being joined; 
• the likelihood that Arbor would simply be rebuilt under s.203 protection;
• the disproportionate harm to the developer and public interest compared to the claimants’ losses; 
• the public benefit of retaining Arbor;
• that the developer had not acted unfairly – it was entitled to argue that an injunction would be oppressive;
• the claimants’ own acceptance that they did not want Arbor demolished;
• the fact that all other affected residents settled their claims (which indicated damages were an adequate remedy); and 
• the availability of adequate compensation through damages.

The court’s approach to negotiating damages

A right to light claim is a claim to enforce an easement. In cases such as this, where an injunction is refused as a matter of discretion in favour of damages (being the second category of case outlined in the Supreme Court’s decision in One Step (Support) Ltd v Morris-Garner [2018]), negotiating damages are appropriate. 

The damages are awarded for the loss of the right that the owner wanted to use and enjoy with their property, in perpetuity.  It would not be correct to award damages by reference to diminution in value, as the claimants are not being compensated for a loss of profit.

How the court reached a negotiating damages sum that “felt right”

At the time of the trial, the developer had settled rights to light claims with other residents, paying settlement amounts which were based on multiples of the book value of good light lost. The court, however, rejected the idea that damages should also follow this formula: it held that those settlements were formulaic and not the result of true negotiations. It also rejected the claimants’ approach of claiming a third of the uplift in development value, finding it excessive and based on flawed assumptions, including double-counting profit and land value and failing to account for the need to share compensation with other rights holders.

Instead, the court adopted an approach based on a hypothetical negotiation taking place just before the building was constructed. It assumed that the claimants were willing to sell their rights, but only at a proper price. It was assumed that the developer was willing to pay a proper price, but not a large ransom. The developer would have been keen, but not desperate, to build the full building. Both parties were assumed to be reasonable in their approach, and receptive to points made in opposition. 

The court considered that, in practice, the perceived gain to the developer would have been a main focus of negotiations. Further considerations would have been the risk to the developer of an injunction, countered by the fact that the developer could have asked the Council to allow the development to exercise its s.203 powers to allow it to go ahead. The developer would also be assumed to be reluctant to pay too great a proportion out of its settlement fund, at a time when there were other potential claims to be settled. This approach led the court to a figure of £725,000 for the first claimant, and £525,000 for the second claimant. 

The court then stepped back and considered the figures in the round – asking whether they were the kind of sums that one could reasonably expect to have been negotiated (in other words, whether they “felt right”).  In this case, the court felt the figures it had arrived at were disproportionate when compared to the overall value of the flats in question. This led the court to reduce the award for the first claimant to £500,000, and the award for the second claimant to £350,000.

The court did also consider the diminution in market value of the flats, but these figures were only used to cross-check the reasonableness of the negotiating damages awarded.