Working classes are no more, argues QC

The working classes no longer exist as such, the High Court was told yesterday in an unusual case to decide the future of a plot of land off King's Road in London.

Earl Cadogan, 64, one of Britain's wealthiest landowners, is trying to stop a property company building luxury houses on a site in Chelsea originally intended to provide homes for the poor.

The Earl, who has a £1.3bn fortune and owns 90 acres of central London, says that a legal covenant on the land, which was sold by his grandfather, restricts its use to benefit the poor and in particular "for the housing of the working classes".

But Dano Ltd, which owns the site, is seeking a legal ruling that a 1929 restrictive covenant, when the land was sold to Chelsea Metropolitan Borough Council, is no longer valid.

Michael Barnes QC, for the company, told Mr Justice Etherton that the covenant on the land once occupied by the disused Rat and Parrot pub in Manor Street off King's Road was not enforceable. He said that "working classes" meant those employed in manual or industrial jobs for wages. This had a clear meaning in 1929, he said.

He added: "It is not possible to say today with any degree of certainty or precision what is meant by the working classes or whether any person is within that description."