header-logo header-logo

Pond life: reasonable adjustments?

05 August 2022 / Nicholas Dobson
Issue: 7990 / Categories: Features , Public
printer mail-detail
89736
The best things in life cannot always be free: Nicholas Dobson dives into the ruling on a controversial fee uplift at the Hampstead Heath swimming ponds
  • The High Court has ruled that the revised charging policy for the Hampstead Heath swimming ponds, which saw increased fees but with concessions, was lawful.

‘Created centuries ago, the Heath’s chain of ponds are one of the sources of the River Fleet that runs subterraneously through London. Swimming in the Ladies’ Pond’s green, silty, silky waters, it’s hard to avoid the feeling that you are moving through history and outside of time.’ So runs the online blurb for At the Pond: Swimming at the Hampstead Ladies’ Pond by Margaret Drabble and others. And as novelist Esther Freud once wrote in the Financial Times: ‘There is so much space here. So much peace.’

But all was rather less peaceful following a March 2020 price increase. For this ended the self-policing fee arrangements of £2.00 per swim and £1.00 concessionary rate, which had been in place since

If you are not a subscriber, subscribe now to read this content
If you are already a subscriber sign in
...or Register for two weeks' free access to subscriber content

MOVERS & SHAKERS

DWF—19 appointments

DWF—19 appointments

Belfast team bolstered by three senior hires and 16 further appointments

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Firm strengthens leveraged finance team with London partner hire

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Double hire marks launch of family team in Leeds

NEWS
Charles Pigott of Mills & Reeve reports on Haynes v Thomson, the first judicial application of the Supreme Court’s For Women Scotland ruling in a discrimination claim, in this week's NLJ
Charlie Mercer and Astrid Gillam of Stewarts crunch the numbers on civil fraud claims in the English courts, in this week's NLJ. New data shows civil fraud claims rising steadily since 2014, with the King’s Bench Division overtaking the Commercial Court as the forum of choice for lower-value disputes
The Supreme Court issued a landmark judgment in July that overturned the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, once poster boys of the Libor and Euribor scandal. In NLJ this week, Neil Swift of Peters & Peters considers what the ruling means for financial law enforcement
Small law firms want to embrace technology but feel lost in a maze of jargon, costs and compliance fears, writes Aisling O’Connell of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in this week's NLJ
Artificial intelligence may be revolutionising the law, but its misuse could wreck cases and careers, warns Clare Arthurs of Penningtons Manches Cooper in this week's NLJ
back-to-top-scroll