Blackburn wins contractor court battle

The council has successfully defended a £1.7m claim from administrators of Bury-based Thomas Barnes & Sons, which it fired from building the town’s bus station in 2015.

Contractor Thomas Barnes & Sons, which is in the control of administrators from Begbies Traynor, had initially tried to claim £3m from Blackburn with Darwen Council, a sum reduced to £1.7m before the case was heard.

According to the court papers, the claimant said it was the combination of the council’s failure to make interim payments and its “wrongful termination of the contract” which caused the building firm to go into administration in November 2015.

Begbies Traynor brought the action in 2020, pursuing claims for both monies due under the contract on a proper valuation of the works done at termination – including claims for loss and expense said to have been suffered as a result of the prolongation of the contract period for matters for which the council was responsible; and for damages for wrongful termination representing the claimant’s loss of profit on the remaining works.

The court papers record that “the administrators have been able to afford to do so through the financial support of members of the Barnes family who were the owners of the claimant company and who are secured creditors in the administration”.

The case was heard over 11 days in July in the technology and construction court division of the High Court at Manchester’s Civil Justice Centre.

The argument made by the claimant was essentially that issues with the build programme originated from Capita, the council’s designer and project administrator.

As the papers record, “the claimant’s case is that those within the defendant and Capita who were responsible for this project were very keen to pin the blame for the serious time and cost overruns on the project on someone else and that the defendant’s decision to terminate was both led by Capita and politically motivated to put the blame on the claimant. All of this is disputed by the defendant.”

His Honour Judge Stephen Davies handed down his judgment this week, ruling that the council is not required to make any payment to the building firm.

The judge decided that the council had been entitled to terminate the contract with Thomas Barnes & Sons, because of delays in the construction of Blackburn Bus Station.

It was also decided that the termination of the firm’s employment had been legally sound, and that the council was entitled to offset the costs of employing another contractor to complete the bus station. The judge concluded: “It follows that the claimant has no prospect of recovering anything in this litigation.”

Thomas Barnes was removed in June 2015, with Eric Wright stepping in to complete the project. Building of the transport facility was completed in early 2016, opening in May of that year and subsequently being shortlisted for the RIBA North West Award.

Asad Laher, deputy director of legal governance at the local authority, said: “The Council is very pleased with the court’s judgement today which vindicates the Council’s decision to terminate the contract with Thomas Barnes.

“The Council only ever uses litigation as a last resort, as a way to resolve disputes and in this case always sought to avoid costly proceedings. However, faced with multi-million pound claims, which were meritless, we strongly defended the claim supported by expert legal advice.”

Blackburn with Darwen said it will now look to recover its costs of defending the claim.

Begbies Traynor declined to comment.