Last Orders for the Beer Garden? Pride well Properties v Spirit Pub Company

In this episode, Richard and Lizzie unpack the High Court decision in Pridewell Properties (London) Ltd v Spirit Pub Co (Managed) London Ltd [2026] EWHC 953 (Ch), a case we are revisiting on redevelopment opposition under Ground (f) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954.

The dispute regards The Railway Bell, a 19th century pub in South Woodford, where the landlord sought possession to redevelop the site by building houses in the beer garden and converting upper floors into residential flats.

Although the court accepted the landlord genuinely intended to redevelop, the claim ultimately failed because the evidence on funding was not strong enough.
Richard explores:

• Why Ground (f) remains the most heavily litigated ground under the 1954 Act;
• What counts as a “firm and settled intention” to redevelop;
• Why proving funding is critical;
• The evidential hurdles landlords face when opposing lease renewals; and
• What this means for developers, investors, landlords and occupiers across the real estate market.

A must-listen for anyone involved in commercial property redevelopment, asset management or lease renewals.

Relevant cases:
Bath Rugby Ltd v Greenwood & Ors v Bath Recreation Ltd [2021]
[Hutchinson, Re 1 Captains (Lands Chamber) [2009]
MVL Properties Ltd v The Leadmill Ltd [2025]
Ministry of Sound Ltd v The British and Foreign Wharf Company Ltd [2025] 

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Transcript

Lizzie Collin
Welcome back to another episode of Unpacking the Case. Today we are talking about a case which feels very reflective of the current property market, the tension between preserving existing commercial uses and the pressure for redevelopment. We are revisiting a case called Pridewell Properties and Spirit Pub Company, about a pub in South Woodford called the Railway Bell. The landlord wanted possession under ground F of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 to redevelop the site, including building houses in the beer garden and converting the upper floors into flats. What makes the decision particularly interesting is that the court accepted the landlord genuinely intended to carry out the works, but the problem was proving that they had a realistic prospect of funding them. So today we are going to look at the evidential burden underground F and what landlords, developers and tenants should take away from the judgement. Hi Richard.

Richard Snape
Hello Lizzie. It's a nice sunny day out here.

Lizzie Collin
It is a sunny day all round I think. A lovely day to be talking about a case that we've actually talked about before back last year in March. And the case is called Pridewell Properties London Limited and Spirit Pub Company Managed Limited. And it was a county court case. It's gone to the High Court and the judgment came out on the 24th of April, so kind of last week as we're recording. And it's all about a pub called the Railway Bell in South Woodford. So do you want to remind us of the background, what happened when we were talking about it this time last year?

Richard Snape
Yeah, it's the Railway Bell, which is in South Woodford, which is in Redbridge Borough Council in East London. And it seems to have been a pub, a 19th century pub. I say pub, it was a pub on the ground floor, but there was some residential unit up above. and they'd had a large beer garden. And the tenants, the current tenants lease was 54 at protected. Synchro started in 2007. And from the law report, we don't seem to know when it terminated. But the landlord, Pridewell Properties, is an SPV, a special purpose vehicle, which was set up specifically to deal with the sort of redevelopment of this pub. as is happening with so many pubs. And the plans were that they would build an extra storey and revamp the residential units. So you'd have two floors of residential units, but two-thirds of the beer garden would be taken off up by three houses, 3 mews properties in part of the form of beer garden, but the pub would remain. So you can have a nice mews property and just walk across the beer garden to the pub. Sounds perfect. But they need to get possession of the place and they wanted to argue on that they could use ground F, which we've talked about before. It's probably what it is definitely the most litigated ground under the 54 Landlord Attendance Act. It's when the landlord intends to demolish or reconstruct or carry out substantial works which couldn't reasonably do without obtaining possession. And so that's what the landlord's plan was to use Ground F. Shall I tell you about just briefly what happened at the first instance, just to refresh? Yes, please. Yeah, it was, there was various issues that were discussed at first instance. Primarily, and the important one in the appeal decision is how long after any court order have you got to actually carry out the works and start carrying out the works. that are required. Section 64 of the 54 Landlord and Tenant Act says that basically the lease continues for three months after being fully determined by the courts and you've got an extra 21 days appeal procedure, so it's basically three months and 21 days. But how long after that do you have to take to start the development, if you like? And cases, which I'll perhaps come back to in the past, have said you've got a reasonable time for it to commence. which is usually months, three months tends to be not a problem. But I was amazed at the first instance decision, they said that it was going to be 10 to 14 months before they could start the development, but that on the facts they said was reasonable, because the tenants hadn't allowed the landlords in to carry out preliminary work surveys and the likes in relation to the development. They didn't have an obligation to let the landlord in. But they said that 10 to 14 months might be reasonable, would be reasonable. They actually failed on other grounds that they said that the landlord hadn't put a planning application in yet. Without the planning application, you wouldn't be able to get funding and you've got to have a real chance of funding. So they failed on that ground. And this is the appeal.

Lizzie Collin
So what happened when it got to the High Court?

Richard Snape
Well, they argued 4 different things. Firstly, lieutenants argued there was a restrictive covenant in relation to the land from 1870, but there was no details of the restrictive covenant and what it might say and who the beneficiaries were. It's what the land registry do. It had gone through first registration in 1968 and they had, the land registry had just lifted this restrictive covenant from title and put it on the register. but no one knew who the beneficiaries were. But the tenants tried to argue there's a possibility of the beneficiaries turning up one day. The court, the High Court in that case, decided that there's no possibility, you know, it's a there's a real prospect, not no possibility, but there's a real prospect that they won't turn up and a real chance there've been several, you know, series of separate owners over the land of the land over the over the years. And in any case, you can insure for these things. What they didn't deal with is there's several cases which basically say, because it's language, we practice not to tell you what the benefited land is. And if you've not kept the deeds, if you're not careful, you might just lose all evidence. Do you remember we did a case called Bath Rugby in Greenwood a few years ago? Yeah, I do. About the wreck in Bath and restrictive covenants, which were against committing a nuisance and annoyance for the benefit of the Bathwick estate. And the Court of Appeal decided that's not sufficiently clear as to who the beneficiaries are. There's other case, there was a case called V Hutchinson back in 2009, which said, you know, the language you can be told to remove the covenants from title if you don't know who the beneficiary are, but they didn't go down that route. So that was the first thing. Then they argued you can't show that the possibility of real chance. You don't have to have funding, you have to have a real chance, a real prospect, just as you have to for planning permission. But the tenants tried to argue the landlords didn't have a real chance because unless you knew what the restrictive covenant said and whether it stopped the developments, then the banks might not lend on it. I think that was that was scraping the bottom of the barrel. Because again, the banks would probably, it might cost you more by way of premium, but you'll take out a policy for such things. And in any case, you could always try to go off to the lands chamber upper tribunal, of the upper tribunal to get the covenants discharged because they prevent reasonable use of the land or they're obsolete. So that, I thought, was a bit of a non-starter, which failed. The third possibility was, you've got to have a real prospect. You don't have to have planning permission, but a real chance or a real prospect of planning permission. And they talked about various things and expert witnesses, you know, part of the council's policy was to keep public houses open if they have, you know, cultural, economic, heritage value for the community. And also, that if you allow residential development near a noisy venue like that, you have to build within the, actual development sort of noise insulation alikes. But on the other hand, then, there's a shortage of housing in, well, in London in particular, and so you have to weigh everything up. The High Court didn't make a determination on that. They said they didn't have enough evidence. If they couldn't decide it didn't another on another ground, then they'd have to remit it back to the county court for further evidence. So that was left in the balance. But the real important thing is the time periods. Shall I tell you about that? The time before you've got to start the development. Yeah, please do. dated, they said that, well, section 64 of the Act just says it doesn't say you have to start the development within a reasonable time. It's case law that said that subsequently, reasonable time of the old lease coming to an end. And there'd been a Court of Appeal cases long ago as 1956 called the Greerhorn and Barry Corporation in South Wales that said you can't expect the bulldozers to turn up immediately. as soon as you get the lease coming to an end, you've got a sort of period of time before you have to act. There've been another Court of Appeal case called Method Development and Jones, which was the first case, 1971 case that said, again, you've got a sort of reasonable amount of time. And there've been several other cases, Edwards and Thompson with another one, a Court of Appeal decision, which said it's, you know, within a matter of months, you should start the development. But they said in this particular case, or they didn't say, do you remember another case we did last year, close to my heart, because I've been there called MVL in the Lead Mill. Yeah. That's the Lead Mill Music Centre, famous for the Arctic Monkeys and Pope in Sheffield, where they said that a six months time period was a reasonable time to start re- lamping this music venue as a new music venue. In any case, they said if, it's not when the new venue is going to be opening, it's when you can start the development and you can, as soon as you start development, that's your time period. But there's no concept in the legislation of a reasonable time. And they said 10 to 14 months is not a reasonable time. You know, we don't have any specific concept. It's enough time in the circumstances, but 10 to 14 months is not. So it looks like the railway bell, subject to another appeal, it's too early to know what's happening. The railway bell will still be a Victorian pub in the east of London.

Lizzie Collin
Well, there we go. Just what London needs is more pubs.

Richard Snape
More pubs, yeah. Can't have too many.

Lizzie Collin
So what's the conclusion on this one then, Richard?

Richard Snape
Well, I thought that the restrictive covenants point was a non-starter. I mean, what they can do, if they can't within a reasonable time start the development, but we might have the prospects of doing so at a later stage when they've sorted out the plans and the planning permission and developers and so on, then what they can do is, the tenant can have their new lease, but you can ask the court to include a redevelopment break. within that time period, it's likely to be able to start the development no earlier than two years. You ask for a redevelopment break after two years and you break the lease and use ground FM. We did the case on that last late last year as well. The Ministry of Sound, remember that one.

Lizzie Collin
Yeah, another musical reference.

Richard Snape

Yes, we like to, Lizzie and myself like to tour the music venues of Britain. They are purely, purely Reasons to do with work.

Lizzie Collin
Research purposes.

Richard Snape
Research, that's the word. Where the landlord showed that they might have a possibility of sort of, well, selling off the Ministry of Sound for residential development student accommodation sometime in the future. So they were given a redevelopment break exercise, well, no earlier than June of 2028 on a 15 year lease. So I think that would have been a better bet, actually. In those circumstances, that's what you should be doing. National car parks and Peter and Oster Consortium was another case amongst many, as was that Rhea Horn and Barry Corporation. And that's it.

Lizzie Collin
There you go. Thank you very much, Richard.