The top-floor resident of a 20-storey tower block in Birmingham has failed in his bid to stop the council from retrofitting fire sprinklers in all of its tower blocks.
Robin Clark claims the decision to fit sprinklers is “a waste of pubic money that could be spent elsewhere,” and an unnecessary “panic response by politicians keen to be seen to be doing something in response to the tragedy at Grenfell Tower.”
He has already lost his case at the High Court, but managed to take it to all the way to the Court of Appeal, England’s second-highest court.
According to the ruling, in June 2017, just two weeks after the Grenfell Tower tragedy, Birmingham Council’s cabinet received a report recommending a rolling programme of sprinkler-fitting in tower blocks, whether or not the government was prepared to contribute.
In March 2018, the council approved a £19m provision to fund the retrofit. And, according to the ruling, “there is no statutory obligation on the council or its cabinet to take the value-for-money issues or any other specific matters into account”.
Clarke must therefore identify something relevant that the council hadn’t considered. And for that, he argued that there was a “trivially minimal low risk” caused by not installing the sprinklers, “and the sprinklers themselves would create ‘gross uglification’ in the residents’ homes.”
However, the court found that a detailed debate about fire safety had taken place, and the council wasn’t under a legal obligation to consider factors such as “gross uglification”.
The judges ruled that there is no basis for finding the the council acted in an arbitrary manner, and dismissed the appeal.
Clarke, who is representing himself, can ask the Supreme Court to reconsider the case, but he would have to convince them that he has an arguable point of law to make.
