Under existing laws, public access to pseudo-public spaces remains at the discretion of landowners who are allowed to draw up their own rules for “acceptable behaviour” on their sites and alter them at will. They are not obliged to make these rules public. The result is that unless landowners choose to volunteer the information themselves, members of the public have no way of knowing what regulations they are bound by at some of London’s biggest open spaces and whether activities they enjoy a legal right to in other public areas—be they taking photos, holding a political protest or even simply sitting down and having a nap—are permitted, or whether they will result in removal by security guards.
“Revealed: the insidious creep of pseudo-public space in London” at www.theguardian.com