Does a right to rebuild or renew include a right to develop?

Meaning of ‘rebuilding’

Depending always on the context in which the term is used, the Court of Appeal confirmed in Risegold v Escala that, in general terms, ‘rebuilding’ is not limited to, although it clearly includes, the reconstruction of an existing building to be as originally built or similar. It could also, for example, include the demolition of the existing building(s) and the re-purposing of the cleared site for other purposes (eg as a car park or an open air storage area). The fact that ‘rebuilding’ has a restricted meaning in the context of planning legislation or a leasehold covenant does not mean that it should bear a similarly restricted meaning in, say, a right of entry provision (against a background where the parties must have contemplated when the right was reserved that there would be possible changes to the land and buildings in the future, with the consequence that flexibility of meaning was required to make the right work in a sensible fashion).

The Court of Appeal went on to state