HUMAN RIGHTSConstruction of lease of airport granted by local authority - local residents applying to be joined in proceedings alleging breach of human rights - application refusedBiggin Hill Airport Ltd v Bromley London Borough Council: ChD (Nicholas Strauss QC sitting as a deputy High Court judge): 22 November 2000The claimants, lessees of Biggin Hill Airport, sought a declaration that on a correct construction of their lease they were entitled to use the airport for scheduled flights.

The council contended for a more limited construction.

After the hearing, but before judgment was given, a group of local residents applied to be joined to the action on the ground that if the court found in the claimants favour the lease would infringe the residents rights under the Human Rights Act 1998.Matthew Hutchings (instructed by Richard Buxton, Cambridge) for the local residents.

Guy Fetherstonhaugh (instructed by Blake Lapthorn, Fareham) for the claimants.

Stephen Moriarty QC and Marcus A Smith (instructed by Chief Legal Officer, Bromley London Borough Council, Bromley) for the council.Held, refusing the application, that a contract was to be construed in the light of the factual background at the time it was entered into; that the Human Rights Act 1998 did not alter the effect of contracts entered into before 2 October 2000 except, arguably, where the public authority had entered into it intending it to be compatible with the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights; that the parties had had no such intentions in 1994 when the lease had been granted; that there was no basis for implying a term into the contract that operations interfering with rights under art.8 of the convention were prohibited; that the contract was not unlawful for failing to prohibit such interference; and that the court, as a public authority, would not be acting unlawfully in granting a declaration that the contract permitted scheduled flights.