Briggsy’s Property Blog: Sensible outcome needed for ‘right of light’ case

EVERYBODY loves a fall-out. Well, those not directly involved usually do.

So it’s perhaps unsurprising that one of the best read stories on TheBusinessDesk.com so far this week has been the one about the ongoing spat between developer Highcross and businessman Marcus Heaney.

Highcross is appealing against a court’s decision to pull down part of its Toronto Square office building in Leeds city centre.

The appeal hearing is set to take place next week, TheBusinessDesk.com understands.

The court order, which was made last September, found for Mr Heaney, the owner of the neighbouring property, from which he manages his Aspire events management business, who argued the Toronto Square obstructed his ‘rights of light’.

Toronto Square is home to tenants including Reed Recuitment and accountancy firm Zolfo Cooper, which has taken a 10-year lease to occupy 7,050 sq ft of the top floor of the building.

And it’s the top section of the building that is understood to have caused the upset,

Judge Langan QC, sitting at the Leeds District Registry, awarded Marcus Heaney a mandatory injunction against Highcross last September for the ‘actionable interference’ with rights of light to the former Yorkshire Penny Bank building in Infirmary Street.

Highcross bought the then five-storey property on Infirmary Street in December 2005 and added a sixth and seventh floor, which Zolfo Cooper occupies, as well as refurbishing the existing building.

One has to be careful about what one can say with an appeal case ongoing but let’s hope common sense prevails. To my mind, it does nothing for the image of Leeds or the region’s property community for this issue to drag on.

As one commentator posted on our website this week: “With all the problems in the world of work and business out there, this seems a meaningless issue, what use will the demolition of two floors serve? Surely there is a better way to sort it out boys.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

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THE news that the Sevenstone retail quarter in Sheffield is moving forward has to be welcomed.

Sheffield City Council is to borrow £10m to enable the previously stalled scheme by developer Hammerson to get going.

The Council and Hammerson have agreed terms to execute a Compulsory Purchase Order at the Sevenstone site, meaning that construction work on the scheme could begin “at the earliest in 2013/14”.

Sevenstone will provide 80,000 sq m of prime retail and mixed use space, and is still expected to include a John Lewis store. It is expected that full scheme details will emerge later this year.

At a time of austerity when eyebrows are raised whenever the public sector spends even the smallest event, questions will undoubtedly be raised about a local authority borrowing money to fund a property scheme.

However, the Council’s hand was forced as the CPO obtained by the Council expires at the end of July, and its expiry without a concrete funding structure in place had threatened to put the scheme into doubt.

Additionally, there is an argument that the Council has actually been entrepreneurial in its approach, and is thinking about the “bigger picture” for Sheffield’s future.

The city centre needs this scheme and the local authority is doing what it can to make that happen. For me, that should be applauded.