Developer fails in claim against engineers for inadequate advice

Even if an expert fails to exercise the degree of skill and care expected of a reasonably competent professional in producing a report, a claim in professional negligence will fail if the report was not relied upon. The Technology and Construction Court have considered this principle in Darcliffe Homes Ltd v Glanville Consultants and another [2024] EWHC 3184 (TCC). The claimant property developers sought damages for professional negligence against the defendant engineering companies for erroneous advice as to their ground investigation of a proposed development of land at Tilehurst near Reading. The claim against the second defendant was settled before trial. In May 2014, Darcliffe engaged Glanville to provide an analysis of the ground conditions of the site on a preliminary desktop basis. Its first report of July 2014, which was used to promote the site, concluded that there were no significant problems with the ground conditions that would prevent the development of the site for its intended use. Its second updating report, of February 2016, was in materially identical terms. The second defendant carried out intrusive ground investigations in 2017 and were supplied with Glanville’s reports. Planning permission to develop the site was granted in December 2016 and Darcliffe purchased it for £5m in November 2019. Following the purchase, it discovered the site was affected by widespread chalk dissolution, which required substantial remediation costs when constructing the development. Darcliffe argued that had Glanville warned of the position it would not have proceeded with the purchase and sought damages of £7.5m. The court concluded that Glanville did not carry out any real analysis of the Envirocheck report it received, which included records of observed chalk dissolution features for locations in the vicinity of the site where the geology was similar to the site itself. Had it done so it would have reported on those issues or at least warned of the potential hazards flowing from the presence of such features nearby. Its advice was inadequate and in breach of its duty to carry out the assessment reasonably competently. However, the court did not accept that Darcliffe would have done something different from what it in fact did had Glanville provided a non-negligent report. The second defendant had carried out intrusive ground investigations and had access to the underlying information Glanville had obtained. It was also aware of the fact that the site was underlain by the Seaford Chalk Formation. The principal at Darcliffe skim-read Glanville’s first report and no one sought clarification of confusing observations within it. Consequently, the effect of the reports was minimal. Louise Clark is a property law consultant and mediator