Is the Tate a public authority? Nicholas Dobson examines a recent ruling on nuisance & nosiness
- Apartment owners overlooked by the Tate Modern’s viewing gallery had no right to privacy under the Human Rights Act 1998. There was also no actionable nuisance.
There’s always something, isn’t there? For biblical Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden would have been great if the serpent hadn’t turned up to poop the party. Roses would be fine but for the thorns. And we could live with morning wake-up alarms if they just gave up going off. But, as the eccentric philosopher noted in James Stephens’s comic novel The Crock of Gold in 1912: ‘Nothing is perfect’.
And so it was for the owners of four flats in a development adjacent to the Tate Modern Museum, whose prime views from prestige apartments unfortunately came with privacy issues. For their living areas are extensively glassed and look directly on to a new Tate Modern extension. And around the tenth floor of the extension a viewing walkway affords Tate Modern visitors
