The Times - UK (2022-06-11)

the times | Saturday June 11 2022 17

News

Litigation over Japanese knotweed is
growing as fast as the plant itself with a
new claim that the plant has taken root
in the foundations of a £1.7 million
house.
Christopher Clarke, the director of a
cycling charity, told a court the plant
was “leaning over” his neighbours’
fence and blocking his back door in
Kensal Green, northwest London.
Knotweed, Reynoutria japonica, is
native to east Asia and can damage
buildings and infrastructure. If left un-
checked, infestations can create diffi-
culties for property-owners to secure a
remortgage or sell.
The plant is tenacious once estab-
lished,with cuttings being treated as li-
censed hazardous waste owing to its
ability to spring up from the smallest
part of a cutting.
In 2018, the Court of Appeal ruled
that two householders were entitled to
a payment from Network Rail because
it failed to control the plant on its land.
The next year a blind man was awarded
£50,000 compensation after a surveyor

patrick kidd

TMS

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Island sleuth’s

brief revival

There has been much excitement

in Jersey this week, with a local

paper splashing on the return of

Bergerac, the detective series set

on the island. After several years

of ping-pong between production

companies, shooting is finally due

to begin next summer and the

Evening Post claims that John

Nettles is to get a cameo. Nettles,

below, became a heart-throb when

he played Jim Bergerac in the

1980s series. Most fans were sane,

but he said there was a “lunatic

fringe” of women, “rarely young”,

who would write love letters to

him, enclosing their knickers.

“Always from Marks & Spencer for

some reason,” he added. It could

be the saving of the company.

Unlike some in her party, Jess

Phillips wouldn’t mind receiving an

honour. “I’ll take Dame,” the Labour

MP said on her podcast. “Nothing

less.” Phillips went on to argue that

anyone with a knighthood should be

sent to the front line when we are

at war. “If you’re a knight of the

realm, I think you have to act as a

knight,” she said. Quick, send Paul

McCartney to the Donbas to sing

Get Back at Putin’s forces.

major’s foreign affair

Having spent only 90 days as

foreign secretary — a gloriously

peaceful period in which we didn’t

have to deploy John Gielgud once

— Sir John Major felt deficient in

his knowledge of world affairs

when he became prime minister.

He told the Conservative

European Forum that he was

perplexed at his first meeting

with Jacques Delors when the

president of the European

Commission raved

about “Doogla”. Was

this some sort of

EC initiative? Or

a UN body?

“Doogla,

Doogla, very good,” Delors went

on. It took Major a while to work

out that he was referring to his

foreign secretary, Douglas Hurd.

inequality aversion

The Fence magazine has a feature

asking Nobel prizewinners the

important questions in life, such as

how much to spend on a bottle of

wine for a dinner party. Sir Angus

Deaton (Economics, 2015) recalled

one where his host hogged the

finest bottle while giving cheaper

wine to his guests. “He was an

economist and I suspect he thought

he was maximising total utility by

allocating the good wine to the

person who’d appreciate it most,”

Deaton says. “Or he was just a jerk.”

Winning a Nobel does allow you to

mix as an equal with the beautiful

people. In the same piece, Sir David

MacMillan (Chemistry, 2021) says he

found himself beside the actress

Penélope Cruz at a bar in Rome.

“She said to me, ‘Could you please

move?’ as I was in her way,” he

recalled. “I mumbled ‘yes!’ and

quickly jumped, which in my mind

counts as a real conversation.”

porcelain stage presence

It’s the final curtain for our series

on old actors spotted resting on

road signs. Buckinghamshire’s

Grendon Underwood, for instance,

had dreams of being the next

Donald Wolfit, says Richard

Lawrence, but was last heard of

doing a one-man show in

Polynesia, while Vivian Wigley

begs me to remember Kirk

Langley, an American entertainer

who crashed near Derby in 1944

and never left. I leave you with a

story from Polly Armfield, who was

once in a production at the Lyric in

Hammersmith where an older

member of the cast wistfully

told her that he wished he had

taken the stage name of

Armitage Shanks. “It is one

that everyone knows they

have seen somewhere,”

he explained.

Couple sue in rampant growth of knotweed legal cases

Jonathan Ames failed to tell him about knotweed at a
£1.2 million flat.
Clarke and his partner, Louise Kaye,
told Central London county court that
knotweed roots had tunnelled under
their border from next door and into
the footings of their Victorian house,
which they bought in 2014. They are su-
ing their neighbours, Talha and Minha
Abbasi, for £250,000 in compensation.
Clarke and his partner have claimed
that their neighbours’ failure to deal
properly with the knotweed has deval-
ued their house, which would other-
wise now be worth £1.67 million.
Their neighbours deny liability for
the knotweed and say that any problem
must have existed before they bought
the land from which it is spreading in
2016 for £166,000.
Andy Creer, a barrister representing
Clarke and his partner, told Judge Alan
Johns that they were claiming “dam-
ages for nuisance for the encroach-
ment”. Clarke, who helps to run Club
Peloton, said that his house had been
devalued by up to 15 per cent because of
the knotweed. As well as growing into
the foundations of his house, tall stems

of knotweed that had shot up on the

neighbouring land had been “en-

croaching” against his back wall and

back door. “It comes through the door

when you open the door,” he told the

judge.

Clarke said that the Abbasis had

taken steps to dig out some of the knot-

weed, but he and Kaye insisted that the

soil on their neighbours’ land needed to

be reduced to a depth of three metres to

remove all traces of the weed.

They added that both houses would

need to be propped up while that work

was done and claimed that instead of

bringing in specialists, the Abbasis had

initially “employed general contractors

to cut down the knotweed stems, which

neither controls nor eradicates the

knotweed”.

Tom Carter, the barrister represent-

ing the Abbasis, said that there was evi-

dence from knotweed experts showing

that the weed had encroached from the

Abassis’ land in 2012 or earlier. “This

means it encroached before the defend-

ants purchased the land,” he said. “The

defendants contend that they cannot

be responsible for any losses the claim-

ants may prove, as those losses were in-

curred before any duty or breach by the

defendants.”

Judge Johns is expected to give a rul-

ing on the case at a later date.

The knotweed has spread to a house

in northwest London from next door