The judgment goes into a lot more detail about the planning process.
Basically, ‘overlooking’ appears to have been overlooked, if you’ll pardon the pun.
As is often the case, both the flats and the Tate extension went through various design changes during the planning approval process.
The Tate extension didn’t originally have the viewing gallery which is causing the problems. It did have a walkway and viewing areas but not all the way round the building.
The viewing gallery in question got added at some point and no one on the planning committee or from the developers of the flats appears to have noted what effect it would have on the flats.
The ‘winter gardens’ were indeed originally intended to be much more ‘outsidey’. They were single glazed, the flooring was different to the ‘interior’ and they were not classed as part of the residential area of the flats.
Over the course of the development, they became double-glazed, got the same flooring as the interior, got underfloor heating and were counted as part of the ‘residential area’.
There is apparently some debate as to whether that classes them as ‘habitable accommodation’ but the judge doesn’t go into that.
In this case both the developer and Tate Modern appear to have been eagerly consenting to each other’s applications. Presumably an element of quid pro quo there as in “I have supported your application so you’re not going to object to mine are you?”
You can actually see into (many of) the flats themselves though.
(d) The view from the viewing gallery into the living accommodation of the two flats at the same level (1801 and 1901) is clear. One can indeed see all sorts of aspects of the daily living of the occupants of those flats, both in the winter gardens and in the kitchen/dining/sitting area of the flat itself. That is almost as true of flat 2101, but not so true of flat 1301. So far as the latter flat is concerned, one has a view into large parts of the kitchen area, the winter garden, and a limited part of the rest of the living area, but not to the extent of the other three flats.
(e) The angle of the view changes as one walks along the southern part of the viewing gallery. At its western end one looks into the winter gardens and then through the glass dividing doors into much of the living accommodation (dining, sitting and kitchen areas). As one walks along the gallery the angle of view changes so that one sees less of the living accommodation through the winter gardens and more of it directly through the living accommodation’s windows. Through one or other of those views, for the subject flats (and obviously the others on that side of Block C) there is a very clear view into most of the living accommodation from one point or other on the southern walkway (subject to what I have said about flat 1301).
