Couple in battle with earl for extension (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Couple in battle with earl for extension

A COUPLE have won the first stage of a legal battle to extend their home on the Savernake estate near Marlborough.

Andrew and Nicola Rickman want to add a second storey to their home but David Brudenell, the Earl of Cardigan, refused consent claiming he had complete freedom to do so under a covenant contained in 1972 sale of the property.

However deputy judge George Bompas ruled that the earl and his co-trustee of the estate Richard Ford are not allowed to withdraw consent unreasonably for building works on the St Katharine's Lodge, which used to be a verger's cottage for St Katharine's Church.

He said that to interpret the covenant any other way could lead to consent being refused even when a "catastrophic event" had occurred at the property.

He said: "The parties to the covenant cannot have expected the covenantee to have the unfettered right to require the property to be preserved in aspic for all time."

The case will now return to the High Court to decide if the consent had been withheld unreasonably in this case.