Residents of a luxury development near the Tate Modern are suing the art gallery, seeking to stop it allowing visitors from using part of a viewing platform they say invades their privacy and has turned their homes into a “public exhibit”.
Giles Duncan Fearn, Gerald Kraftman, Ian McFadyen, Helen McFadyen and Lindsay Urquhart, residents of multi-million-pound flats at Neo Bankside at Holland Street, SE1, have issued the High Court claim in which they seek an injunction against the Tate Modern over the section of the platform that offers a clear view of their homes.
The particulars of the claim, lodged at court, say that between 2012 and 2016 an extension was built to Tate Modern consisting of a 64.5m tower named Switch House, open to the public since June 2016. It has a walkway on the top floor that is in use as a viewing platform, but the Neo Bankside residents say that this is an unreasonable interference in their enjoyment of their flats.
As a result, they brand it a “nuisance” and an interference with their right to respect for their private and family lives under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
They say that, from a significant part of the viewing platform, there is “little to view apart from Neo Bankside”, which means that visitors inevitably have their eyes drawn to the luxury towers.
The particulars say: “So, when the viewing platform is open to the public, a near constant stream of vistors subject the claimants’ flats (and other flats in Neo Bankside) to prolonged, and a high degree of, visual scrutiny.”
This, they say, includes use of binoculars or phones or cameras with zoom lenses, with resulting photographs or films posted on social media sites.
The particulars add: “The claimants and their families are therefore subjected to near-constant ‘surveillance’ when they are in their flats.”
The residents add that the viewing platform has turned their homes into “something akin to a public exhibit”.
Complaining that this means their homes are no longer a secure environment for young children, they say that the Tate Modern could prevent use of the relevant part of the platform at little or no expense, for example by use of cordons. But they say the gallery has refused to do anything.
Tate has acknowledged service of the claim, and is expected to defend it.
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