The Supreme Court’s ruling that the public viewing gallery at Herzog & de Meuron’s Tate Modern extension is a “nuisance” to residents of RSHP’s nearby Neo Bankside apartment scheme is likely to have wider implications for development, property lawyers have said.

One area of particular exposure are projects that feature public viewing space, if that offer is not the primary purpose of the building. The provision of such space in new high-rise buildings has been actively promoted by the City of London Corporation in recent years.

In a decision handed down yesterday, the nation’s top appeal court said lower courts had been wrong not to categorise hundreds of thousands people using Tate Modern’s 10^th floor viewing gallery as posing a nuisance to inhabitants of the nearby high-end Southwark scheme.

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