Qualifying Persons For Provision Of Social Housing: Local Connection/Long-Term Residents Priority

July 26th, 2018 by James Goudie KC

In R (Gullu) v Hillingdon LBC [2018] EWHC 1937 (Admin) Mostyn J said, at paragraph 22:-

“… this case concerns the provision of social housing by a local housing authority. In my opinion there is … in this field a generous margin of appreciation. The court should be very cautious indeed when faced with a claim to strike down a measure which seeks to parcel out fairly a local authority’s housing stock at a time where there is a national housing crisis and where the demand for public housing vastly exceeds the supply. Were the court to afford an advantage to a class of claimants … then it will be at the expense of another group who will find themselves jumped in the queue. When it comes to housing local authorities have to make hard political judgments of a macro-economic nature which the courts are ill-equipped to second-guess. These judgments are the expression of the local democratic process. Hence the need for there to be a strong and obvious case before the court will interfere.”

The Judge found that, if there were any discrimination in the Council’s allocation scheme, it was justified, and there was no failure to comply with the PSED.

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