EWJ August 62 2025 web - Journal - Page 85
Recent Case Highlights Need
for Further Guidance on
What Constitutes a High-Rise
Building in England
Court that decided that a roof-top garden was a 'storey' for building safety purposes
exceeded its jurisdiction
In the recent case of Monier Road Limited v Nicholas
Alexander Blomfield and other Leaseholders (2025), the
Upper Tribunal considered an appeal against a remediation order made by the First Tier Tribunal
(FTT) under the Building Safety Act 2022 (BSA). A
remediation order requires a landlord to carry out
works to remedy building safety defects.
tion to determine if the building was higher-risk, it expressed the opinion that the rooftop garden counted
as a storey, making the building seven storeys high
and therefore a higher-risk building (see paragraphs
67-69 of the judgment).
This decision ran contrary to previously published
government guidance, which explicitly stated that
open rooftops (for example rooftop gardens) are
not considered storeys and should not be included
when calculating the number of storeys or height of a
building.
Under the BSA and the Higher-Risk Building (HRB)
Regulations, a higher-risk building is a building of at
least 18 metres in height or has at least seven storeys.
If a building meets the definition of a higher-risk
building, it will be subject to the more stringent regime
under the BSA.
As a result of this disparity in guidance, the Ministry of
Housing, Communities and Local Government and
the Building Safety Regulator are currently reviewing
the views of the FTT to establish whether rooftop
gardens should be classified as a storey. They note
that, "in the meantime, the sector and regulatory
Disparity with guidance
In the initial decision, the FTT considered the issue of
whether a rooftop garden is considered to be a storey.
Although the FTT acknowledged it lacked jurisdic-
EXPERT WITNESS JOURNAL
83
AUGUST/SEPT 2025