- £90m Lord Street redevelopment case returned to court last month.
- IoM government under continued legal pressure amid disclosure disputes.
- Campaigners warn taxpayers could bear the final cost.
- Court heard allegations of missing and altered documents in long-running £90m dispute.
- Manx Taxpayers Alliance’s Michael Josem voices public frustration.
- High Court examines claims of disclosure failures, and potential misfeasance in public office
The long-running dispute over the stalled Lord Street redevelopment has become a symbol of taxpayer frustration, with campaigner Michael Josem describing the site as ‘literally in ruins in the middle of our town.’
‘…..the Lord Street redevelopment court case is just another straw on the camel’s back,’ he added, ‘whereby we have this giant scar in the middle of our town.
‘If that site had been bombed, no one could tell the difference. It was literally in ruins, and there was rubble there and across the road, and on each of those sites adjacent to the Lord Street carpark.’
‘It should be the most glorious hotspot of activity and life and business and entertainment and residential and everything. And that should be the icon of the island, right? And the center of town.
‘But instead, it’s literally a ruin. And to learn, that there’s now £90 million at stake, in this court case.
‘It’s scary to me as a taxpayer of the Isle of Man, because it means that I suspect that the government officials who made this decision are not going to be held to account.’
Josem, who lives a short distance from the site, warned that the public could face the financial consequences if the dispute worsens.
‘Yet again, it’s going to be the Manx taxpayer who’s going to have to fork out the money if this goes even more pear shaped than it already is.
‘So, I live a couple hundred metres from this site, and every day I walk past and I see the missed opportunities in that really construction should have started a decade ago. People should be living there, building there, and so on.’
Beyond the immediate financial risks, he argued that redevelopment could have relieved housing pressures.
‘Wouldn’t it be great to have some modern apartments that were safe? They were high quality in the middle of town so people…..could walk to their local shops, could walk to local restaurants.
‘And at the same time, not only would they be good housing for the people who move into such places, but in addition, it would also be a benefit for people who moved into the houses they vacate throughout the rest of the Isle of Man.’
Against this backdrop of public debate, the High Court held a case management hearing on August 8th, as the dispute between Sondica Group Inc., and the Department of Infrastructure, the Treasury, and their consultants Lambert Smith Hampton Group Limited entered its seventh year.
The claimant’s advocate, Ms. Victoria Unsworth, told the court: ‘In essence, this is a specific disclosure application and there are four issues essentially to be determined.
‘The first is in relation to the disclosure statement issued by the government defendants.
The second is in relation to proper standard disclosure being given. The third is in relation to native documents, and the fourth is in relation to affidavits of compliance.’
She recalled that a wide order for pre-action disclosure had been made in 2019. ‘It’s our position that still six and a half years on, we have not had compliance with that order. And full disclosure there under the disclosure statement that has been produced in February, following your honor’s order in January, is we submit incorrect.’
Central to the dispute are emails handed over to the court by Lambert Smith Hampton, which appear not to have been mirrored in the government’s disclosure. ‘From this list, what you can see is where documents have been produced by largely Lambert Smith Hampton, where it’s an email to, for example, somebody within government one would expect the government to have similarly disclosed that document. So it should appear twice,’
Unsworth explained, using a colour coded file, to highlight the discrepancies: ‘At first….looking at this, there is a significant amount of blue documents where we have no corresponding green document, which indicates that the government departments either haven’t searched properly, have destroyed or deleted documents, which they haven’t told us they’ve destroyed or deleted.’
She estimated ‘in excess of a hundred’ such examples, adding: ‘For six and a half years, the claimant has been spoonfeeding the government. Every time we have documents disclosed, we’re reviewing them very carefully. We’re identifying documents that are missing. We’re writing to the government saying, these documents are referred to in your correspondence, but we’ve not had sight of them. We’re told they don’t exist, we’re told they can’t find them. Then ultimately they’re produced. It’s very painful, but also extremely costly and extremely time consuming.’
Concerns deepened when the claimant discovered differences between versions of key emails. ‘It would appear that that email was tampered with prior to production to us. It was produced to us in PDF format… we are getting, or we have had disclosure where on the face of the documents material has been removed,’ Unsworth said.
She argued that this justified access to the original electronic files: ‘For that reason, your Honour, we are requesting specific disclosure of native documents, which is unusual, but I would submit that we have sufficient grounds in light of that.’
The allegations go to the heart of the claim. ‘One could be forgiven for believing that there is a conspiracy to conceal these critical documents from the claimant,’ Unsworth told the court. ‘These documents and any others that may exist… may very well take this from a misfeasance in public office where there is no bad faith to misfeasance in public office where there is bad faith, and that will have a difference when it comes to damages.’
Government counsel, Mr. Keats, defended the departments’ actions. ‘Where we can carry out a reasonable proportionate, targeted search to look for specific documents, we are doing that I’m engaging in government transformation services to look in people’s email boxes in files. They’re doing an act for me currently as we speak. So searches are continuing,’ he said.
‘We are carrying out these searches, we are trying to find documents. Even if we don’t accept, they ought to have already been produced. We are still looking for them because it’s reasonable to do so.’
Keats indicated that one contested mailbox could be handed over in full. ‘I’m anticipating instructions just to hand it over as requested, subject to any privilege. I don’t think that’d be particularly difficult. My understanding is that it is secured by Government Technology Services.’
The presiding judge made clear his concern about the slow progress. ‘The timescale is quite frankly, rather disturbing for all sorts of reasons. It started back in 2021 accordingly. But I think it goes back even further than that to a pre-action disclosure 2019. And really, I was thinking before I came in, really this matter needs a trial date fixing actually… this has gone on long enough and it needs a trial date.’
After discussion, the parties agreed directions and a further hearing was scheduled for November 5th.
For Josem, however, the dispute is already a heavy burden. ‘Yet again, it’s going to be the Manx taxpayer who’s going to have to fork out the money,’ he said.
To him, Lord Street remains both an emblem of neglect and a warning of the risks when major redevelopment projects collapse into litigation.
Timeline of the Lord Street case
• 2017 – Initial reports by Lambert Smith Hampton produced, with draft and final versions referenced in correspondence.
• 2019 – Wide order for pre-action disclosure made against the Department of Infrastructure.
• 2021 – Dispute formally escalates in court with disclosure issues raised.
• 2024 – Court hears repeated complaints of missing documents; list of 62 items flagged as outstanding.
• 8 August 2025 – Case management hearing held; claimant alleges missing and altered documents, government disputes claims.
• 5 November 2025 – Next hearing scheduled, with trial preparations urged by judge.
Key Issues
• Value at stake: £90 million
• Key parties: Sondica Group Inc., Department of Infrastructure, Treasury, Lambert Smith Hampton
• Main allegations of last hearing: Missing documents, altered emails, misfeasance in public office
• Time elapsed: More than 6 years since first disclosure order in 2019
• Next hearing: 5 November 2025
