Law Report: Council's delay in providing accommodation was lawful: Regina v Brent London Borough Council, Ex parte Macwan - Court of Appeal (Lord Justice Dillon, Lord Justice Leggatt and Lord Justice Henry), 23 March 1994

A council is entitled, in discharging its duty to provide permanent accommodation to a homeless person, to wait until the lease of her short-term temporary accommodation had expired before making an offer of final permanent accommodation, since, although the lease was for three years, the accommodation was suitable for her and there were no overriding medical or other grounds for providing the permanent accommodation more immediately.

The Court of Appeal allowed an appeal by the council from Sir Louis Blom-Cooper's order quashing the council's decision that the applicant could stay at her present temporary accommodation until February 1995.

In October 1990 the council accepted that it had a duty to house the applicant as a homeless person with priority need under the Housing Act 1985. An offer of housing on a council estate was withdrawn and while a medical report was obtained, she occupied a housing association flat suitable for her needs, under a private-sector lease which expires in February 1995.

The council's policy was to leave families in such accommodation until the lease ended when an offer of permanent accommodation in council housing with indefinite tenure would be made, unless there were overriding medical or social grounds which required the council to offer permanent accommodation before the end of the lease.

The applicant, who produced a medical report stating that her health would be adversely affected by the uncertainty about her accommodation, challenged the council's decision to defer the provision of permanent accommodation.

Ashley Underwood (Borough Solicitor) for the council; James Bowen (Daniel & Harris) for the applicant.

LORD JUSTICE LEGGATT said that a housing authority might discharge its statutory duty by stages. Although section 65(2) stipulated neither that the accommodation must be permanent nor that it should become available at once, it did have to be secured without limit of time, and so to be indefinite. The accommodation secured must be suitable. Like other concepts in this sphere suitability imported questions of fact and degree, and was dependent on all the circumstances, including size, composition and health of the applicant's household, and the applicant's preference as to area and type of accommodation, as well as the availability of housing and the pressures on the local authority from competing applicants.

Nothing in the Act required the local authority to set about securing permanent accommodation 'immediately', though no doubt by implication it should do so as soon as reasonably practicable. The question was whether the council's policy was such as no reasonable local authority could have adopted. The policy was far from being in that sense irrational.

The council was not to be reproached for making flexible and efficient use of sparse resourses in carrying out its task of housing nearly 2,000 homeless families.

Although during the waiting period the applicant would be exposed to a period of uncertainty, the alternative could not be an immediate offer of an off-estate flat in the area of her choice. The alternative, in practice, would be to add to the existing uncertainty about the type and location of the accommodation, uncertainty about the timing of the offer.

The council, as it was entitled to do, was proceeding in two stages. The applicant's present accommodation was suitable. The period for which it was to be occupied would afford a period of stability before the move to her final accommodation. The council did not act unlawfully or unreasonably.

LORD JUSTICE DILLON concurred and LORD JUSTICE HENRY agreed.