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Comment by flotzam | Hacker News Reader

> more likely to get planning permission if their new skyscraper included a free public roof terrace

If that's the deal, it's crazy that some of those places are getting away with then discouraging the public from actually going there. Book your visit in advance! Present ID! Photography forbidden! This grumpy security guard will be hovering nearby <3

It's like Nathan For You S03E01 where a store advertises a $1 TV, then tells the drawn in would-be customers to please respect the black tie dress code, crawl through a tiny door, and squeeze past the alligator.

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The problem is worse outside London, hotels in conservation areas that get planning for health clubs on the basis that locals can buy memberships too, then quietly withdrawn. A car park that should be open for public paid parking becomes private.

It's a fantastic idea, but enforcement sucks on intangible things like this. In a few years time I'm sure it will be 'closed for maintenance' then never reopen to the public or a nice restaurant will go up there and suddenly you'll need a restaurant booking to use the lift.

Same with the "affordable housing" criteria of new build housing developments. They'll accidentally forget to build the affordable part then get a slap on the wrist afterwards, or build much fewer than were in the plans, or build whatever they want then apply to regularisation afterwards.

Apart from the "maintenance" thing, how are these "untangible"? Needing a restaurant reservation or whatever is not free.

This shouldn't be hard to enforce.

Perhaps "non-physical" would have been a better term to use. The problem is that these obligations are often secured through planning conditions or AT BEST Section 106 agreements. While planning departments are well equipped to enforce whether a building is the correct height or has a window in the wrong place, they are generally much less effective at monitoring and enforcing operational obligations years later. Ensuring that a gym membership scheme remains available, or that a publicly accessible facility continues to operate as promised, is realistically not going to get policed 10 or 15 years after a building has been completed.

They become locations to film movies and tv shows. Conveniant views of london without need to close off a "public" area.

You must book in advance because they’re incredibly popular, huge queues, long waits, and capacity limits. The Sky Garden (Fenchurch Building) is huge, beautiful and absolutely packed with people. Many people consider it a London must visit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20_Fenchurch_Street#Sky_garden

Capacity may indeed be a reason for requiring advance bookings.

But it doesn't explain the ridiculous security (scanning gates, had to take off my hat and belt, insulin pump was inspected), the prohibition of "professional" photography equipment, prohibition of own food and drinks (again, diabetes, I want to carry some lemonade and a bar for emergency), etc etc.

Is it to counter terrorism? To boost consuming at the establishments? Or is it a lame excuse thats in reality just a higher bar to entry?

Have you visited The View from The Shard? A very expensive visit, with exactly the same security checks as Sky Garden. Security in tall buildings is high (even if that security is mostly theatre).

"Certain items cannot be brought into The View from The Shard including large bags and backpacks, over the size of 22 x 15 x 8 inches (55 x 38 x 20 cm) or other large equipment."

"We ask guests to walk through metal detectors, which use a low-frequency electromagnetic field to look for metal items."

https://www.theviewfromtheshard.com/frequently-asked-questio...

The Shard has a hotel (Shangri La) with a separate entrance, and no security to get up to the 52nd floor Gong bar (as well as several other restaurants and bar from 30th floor and up)

Next door you need to go through a scanner to get up to the restaurants on the 31st and 32nd floor of the Shard.

Security in these buildings is very arbitrary. I can get that some of the more high profile places feel more of a need for security, and assume that anyone up to no good will perhaps not be the brightest of the bunch and/or will go for more symbolic targets, but still.

Right, the security is all theatre. My comparison is specifically to show that the security at Sky Garden (free) is not implemented to discourage free visitors when The View from The Shard charges lots of money and wants as many visitors as possible and has the same security.

I agree with that. Which tall buildings in London has security or not is really haphazard and absolutely correlates very little with fees.

This is also true for visitors to the offices located in the shard, it's very annoying to unload a overnight bag when trying to visit an office. I always wondered what the purpose was as regular employees skip the security queue

If you graph obesity and excess security, especially these "metal detectors", there is correlation, thus we should all sue.

> Is it to counter terrorism?

They’re worried that if there was an incident they might get sued for having inadequate security.

I’ve spent a lot of time going to places with security like this (airports, museums etc) and getting a belt with plastic buckles (you can get them at outdoor clothing stores) saves a lot of hassle.

Frankly, I take a perverse delight in going backwards and forwards, slowly taking off my belt, keys, watch, small change and finally, steel toe boots.

> the prohibition of "professional" photography equipment

You want endless influencer photoshoots with professional lighting setups and whatnot?

if that's what people want to do in public, sure.

I mean it's open to the public, or it's not… And if the owner get a say on who can enter and who cannot, then it's not.

I have to agree with rjjejriridd on this one, despite their inappropriate tone.

Everyone knows "open to public" does not mean that you can operate a lemonade stand or conduct a professional photoshoot.

>Is it to counter terrorism? To boost consuming at the establishments? Or is it a lame excuse thats in reality just a higher bar to entry?

Incentives align among all three.

This has been the standard for most/all major tourist attractions for years now.

It's a mix of counter terrorism and of keeping the wrong crowd out.

Ok that one looks legit :)

I was thinking more about his experience with e.g. the last one on the page, Roof Garden at The Post Building:

> I still don't understand why it's here nor why it's open daily, nor why they insist on Photo ID "and a full written name" before they'll let you up. However I didn't get the chance to test this out yesterday because when I arrived the roof terrace was "closed due to essential maintenance work", inconveniencing probably nobody but myself.

Sky Garden is really the only one that does not make it hard. No need to book - just pop up there for with your sandwiches for lunch, and I think it's the best roof garden in city.

You might need to queue for a little while on a weekend or at prime lunchtime.

The others you need to book weeks ahead, so agree with the previous post that they do make it hard. Sky Garden is not one of them.

Why does it have a booking system that says "no tickets available"? Is it unticketed now? Maybe I'll go there next time I'm in London and try.

The odd thing is you certainly used to have book

Lived in london for over a decade, never been and I also don't think I know anyone else who's been.

To be fair it's not just that, you won't find many actual londoners in central full stop unless they're going to work

I wouldn’t say that’s an accurate generalisation.

I’ll often meet and hang out with friends in central London.

> Lived in london for over a decade

> actual londoners

So which is it? Lots of expats in London. They aren’t tourist but they aren’t born-and-bred londoners, are they?

I'm not a proper Londoner but I am English, I stand by my comment though - people who actually grew up in London would be even less likely to be found in central London on a Saturday

I was born in the city I live in and so were my kids. They’ve never visited the #1 tourist attraction, and I only did when I was a kid.

My experience living in the UK was that we’d go off as a family to visit Arundel Castle or one of the hundred other amazing things nearby, and the Brits I worked with would say “oh yeah, I went there on a school trip…” or “oh I’ve heard it’s nice.”

Denizens of a place don’t always appreciate what their location offers. That doesn’t make them cool or better than tourists.

That said, I agree that central London is not somewhere I desperately want to go every day. But there’s a lot of great stuff there.

Yeah true, that's fair enough. And you're right there is good stuff in central especially if you're into cultural stuff (theatre, art galleries etc.) - that stuff is all in central and I absolutely take it for granted, there's only a few cities that can match London for that.

I think I'm just jaded from trying to wade through waddling masses of tourists whenever I make the mistake of going anywhere remotely central on a Saturday or Sunday, but I get why if you're a tourist that stuff probably seems cool

In the article, all the pictures are empty. Not a single person to be seen in any of the pictures.

Last time I was in London for a day, I simply reserved a table at one of the restaurants at Sky Garden and got in without any queues. Maybe I booked it on the previous evening, but not much earlier than that.

I mean they also seem to charge it? (According to the blogpost) then how is it free to the public?

Even if there's no door charge, you know that this is part of an ongoing effort to eliminate any place where the "wrong people" might congregate. Eliminating third spaces for youth and poor/homeless people. It's like putting a bar across the middle of a bench so people can't lie down - it's meant to punish poor people and it also makes things worse for everyone else, but our society finds seeing poor people to be the least comfortable thing possible.

This is basically a lose-lose situation: extra bureaucracy for development projects that actually benefits the local residents (planning applications can get to thousands of pages long, and the whole process takes a really long time [0]), and local residents don't actually get the benefits intended by policies like this. The only people this benefits are those who have a lot of money to throw at things like this.

[0]: https://www.thetimes.com/uk/london/article/shoreditch-works-...

The government benefits by not having to deal with penny pinching developers who can't just make whatever concessions strike their fancy.

Basically their jobs are easier at the expense of the people.

If you think about the potential risks, it is hard to come up with a different model.

The roof has a maximum capacity, not just physically, but for safe evacuation in case of a sudden problem. Hence the limits on attendance.

You'd like to prevent some idiotic or predatory behavior - no one should be able to throw things down onto the street, take over half of the available space for their influencer recordings or unpack a rope and start an inpromptu tightrope walking performance. Roofs often host telecommunication equipment which is expensive and has some strategic value, you'd like to prevent someone from damaging it or at least have a clear identity of a person that did just that.

It is also a place with very limited escape routes, so any panic may translate into crushed people. E.g. no guns, even empty ones, no explosives, nothing that is easily flammable.

This was pretty much my thought as well. If this was done in the US they'd somehow structure access so that it was impossible to actually go there and enjoy the place. The city council would laud it as an accomplishment expanding access to public spaces to all citizens

sf has POPOs and you're sort of right - they were pretty easy to access 10 years ago, but the pandemic gave them enough cover to mostly shut these down or heavily discourage access - though plenty remain open : https://sfpopos.com/

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hfW2q4PW_C8

This is the country where organised marches must have police approval and follow an approved route (and most acute in London). Hardly a surprise!

London's vibe is: 'privately owned, and you're lucky to be here'

Edit: I'm British btw (and currently sat in a pub in London) in case people downvote me thinking I'm a yank lol. There are many people who dislike London and the UK who aren't yanks

In most countries in Europe organized marches and protests must be run by authorities. It's pretty normal here.

Protesting is a legal right but the authorities do have the right to restrict it for public order reasons. For example they often will insist on separate routes to keep conflicting groups apart. It makes sense too.

> This is the country where organised marches must have police approval and follow an approved route

You have to notify the police not get approval. They can "impose conditions and restrictions" for safety or to limit the rights of others to travel freely, after which they'll also be somewhat liable to protect you from counter-protesters, or lunatics trying to drive their car at you.

Just about every country requires some kind of advance notice if its not just a few people walking along the pavement/sidewalk and your going to obstruct traffic or block others movement

https://groups.friendsoftheearth.uk/resources/your-rights-an...

NB. It's article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights[1] which gives us "the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests."

Reform's manifesto includes[2]: "Stop the Boats with our 4 Point Plan. Leave the European Convention on Human Rights."

[1] https://fra.europa.eu/en/law-reference/european-convention-h...

[2] Page 5 of https://reformuk.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Reform_UK...

I know that you think you just mitigated the extreme character of what he said? But you exacerbated it.

You have a right to _peaceful_ assembly, and others have rights that larger marches impinge on. Police are charged with maintaining public order; which includes balancing rights.

So, how would you manage it?

Exactly my thoughts lol

Disagree on that vibe. The museums are usually free in London, for example. Haven't seen that in many other cities.

> Haven't seen that in many other cities.

Really? In my limited experience in Europe I've often seen attendance to museums are free. When we were in Ireland and Scotland, most museum/galleries were free with suggested donations. In contrast, museums in Italy had fees for attendance.

I know here in Spain, most attractions run by Museos Estatales are free on Saturday PM and Sundays, but some are also free every day (e.g. Museum of Fine Arts here in València).

Granted, that's a very limited subset of European countries/cities, I'd be interested in the pricing structure of other European countries/cities because we are definitely planning to travel in Europe more often now that we live here.

As a sidebar, I can't recommend The Chester Beatty museum enough - https://www.chesterbeatty.ie

There are thousands of protests per year in central London. The larger ones (tens of thousands of people) are going to be disrupting public transport routes than people rely on. There's an approved route so that disruption can be managed. Nothing to do with being 'privately owned'. It also doesn't help that for a large number of people 'protesting' means travelling into London, getting drunk, and fighting.

Its not as if things are any better in the country that boasts the most about its freedoms regarding access to supposedly public spaces: https://www.instagram.com/780_lord_of_bench

Even within London people dislike each other!

Saw many non-Arsenal fans cheering for PSG yesterday.

How many protestors did the U.K. police kill in the last few years, compared to, say, a very free country… like the U.S?

edit: responding to your edit, of course many British people hate London and for many valid reasons, but your reasoning is very American. Very few British people share that American view of freedom and would describe London as “privately owned”.

> but your reasoning is very American.

For god's sake how ridiculous. Give over

What's your basis for commenting on us Brits? You can't even spell UK correctly (we don't use full stops. That's an Americanism / hypercorrection). You spell with a z, so not a Brit

I am no less British than you. I was born in England, raised in England, educated in England, voted in England, my parents were born in England, my grandparents were born in England, my great grandparents were born in England… so on and so forth. I am very sorry that my choice to use American spelling on an American website offends you.

The irony is that the beliefs you’re espousing are an infection caused by U.S. cultural dominance of politics on the Internet. Anti-woke right wing people are heavily influenced by American political attitudes. Do you also believe in Birmingham’s no-go zones?

British people are miserable and cynical and hate everything about our godforsaken country but London being “privately owned” is not one of those things. Civilized protest is not one of those things.

How many protestors did they arrest?

and the city of London is literally a private corporation.

No, it isn't. It is called 'City of London Corporation' in the sense of being a municipal corporation, but effectively it's just a local authority... except that businesses still get a vote along with citizens.

The City of London is a novel anachronism making up a square mile that nobody British would ever refer to as “London” nor do they complain about it being “private”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Municipal_corporation

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