CASE SUMMARIES : Building

The following notes of judgments were prepared by the reporters of the All England Law Reports.

Building

West Faulkner Associates (a firm) v Newham LBC; CA (Balcombe, Hirst, Simon Brown LJJ); 10 Nov 1994.

Under cl 25(1)(b) of the JCT standard form building contract for use by local authorities (1977 revn) which enabled an architect to give a contractor notice if he "fails to proceed regularly and diligently with the works", the contractor had to proceed with the works both regularly and diligently and in appropriate circumstances could be dismissed the site if he failed to do either. While there was a measure of overlap between the two words, "regularly" suggested regular daily attendance with sufficientstaff and resources to make substantial progress, and" diligently" suggested a need to apply them industriously and efficiently to that end. Taken together they imposed an obligation on the contractor to proceed continuously, industrious l y and efficiently with appropriate physical resources so as to progress the works steadily towards completion in accordance with contractual requirements.

Richard Ferneyhough QC, Adrian Williamson (Alastair Thomson & Ptrs) for the appellants; Bruce Mauleverer QC, Kim Franklin (Fenwich Elliott) for the respondents.