G & B Compressor Hire Limited v The Greater London Authority
Decision date: 22 June 2015
Neutral citation: [2015] UKUT 253 (LC)
Overall AI summary confidence: high
Short overview
This short overview is intended to summarise the case, issues and outcome so far as they are supported by the judgment.
AI confidence in this short overview: high
This appeal concerned compensation payable to G & B Compressor Hire Ltd after compulsory acquisition of its Ruckholt Road waste transfer site and enforced relocation to temporary and replacement premises. The tribunal rejected most of the claimant’s projected lost profits and many increased operating cost claims as unproven, allowed a limited period of lost trading profit (£91,101), specified relocation and other heads of loss (total compensation £671,004) and ordered the GLA to pay 50% of the claimant’s costs on the standard basis, subject to deduction of earlier advances.
Ratio decidendi
This summary is intended to identify the ratio decidendi, meaning the legal reasons for deciding and the binding part of the decision.
AI confidence in this ratio decidendi summary: medium
The tribunal treated as essential for awarding future-loss compensation that the claimant prove causation and realistic feasibility of the proposed new business streams, including regulatory/permit and physical capacity constraints; where replacement premises confer market-value advantages or better facilities, higher costs are not automatically compensatable under a value-for-money analysis; expert financial models must be grounded in demonstrable documentary and factual evidence rather than broad untested assumptions.
Obiter dicta
This summary is intended to identify obiter dicta, meaning observations made by the way that were not necessary to deciding the case and are not binding.
AI confidence in this obiter dicta summary: medium
The judgment observed (not as a binding ratio) that installation of a weighbridge, while commercially useful, was not necessarily essential to the new business streams and delay in installation undermined reliance on it as proof of immediate intent; and that claims of increased capacity on a tightly constrained site are inherently suspect without evidence of practicable mitigation, including in the light of environmental agency records of over-capacity.