[2025] UKUT 157 (LC)

Additional Items not identified in the March order

Finally, Mr Selby KC pointed out that two of the Additional Items, namely the external street-facing walls and the courtyard floor, were not listed in the order of 27 March 2024 as matters that BEFS was to report on. All that has been said about the rest of the Additional Items applies to these two items, with the further problem that MRL had no warning before the hearing in July 2024 that these two parts of the building were a concern to the FTT. Their inclusion in the remediation order was therefore particularly unfair. We agree, and would add that the street-facing walls are not even discussed in the FTT’s substantive decision. We fail to see what MRL was supposed to do about the street-facing walls, which were made of brick.

Mr Selby KC also observed that the FTT’s expressed concern about fire escape routes, external stairs and firefighting capacity were inappropriate since BEFS was not asked to report on those matters. Further, its complaint that it did not have a PAS9980 risk assessment was doubly inappropriate because it did not direct such an assessment on 27 March 2024 and because of course it already had one since that was what the MAF report was. We agree.