Sprinklers are a major expense, aside from the installation and maintenance you need a water supply. There are a number of options for this and in this location you could use the Mersey but taking supply from a water course is rarely done because of the filtering problems it causes. Much more common is to have to build a water storage outbuilding. It’s all major expense and for what? Like any type of decision like this it’s a balance between risk and expense and that decision has been vindicated by this incident, no loss of life, no significant collateral damage to adjacent buildings, no contingent liabilities. All the financial risks associated with an incident of this kind have been transfered by insurance, at an individual (cars belongings), and corporate (car park structure) level. You manage risk by either transferring it to someone else, removing it altogether, and if you can’t do either of those reduce it as much as possible.
Everyone involved transfered their risk of major financial loss to their insurance company, including the owner of the building. Let their insurance cover do it’s job. Someone weighed up the expense of sprinklers versus the chances of really bad things happening which they couldn’t adequately risk manage, notably loss of life, and that all appears to be sound decision making in my view.
