Crawley Borough Council, R (on the application of) v Helberg (t/a The Evesleigh Group)

Whether residents occupy a dwellinghouse as a single household under Class C3 is a fact-sensitive question of fact and degree. No single feature, including disability, the need for full-time care, non-resident carers or the physical layout of the premises, is necessarily decisive. Residents receiving care may themselves constitute a single household, even where carers do not live at the property. The approach in North Devon District Council v First Secretary of State does not require resident carers in every case. Any wider observations concerning persons with disabilities were obiter and were not followed. A planning inspector’s assessment will stand where it is based on the statutory criteria and is rationally supported by the evidence.

Crawley Borough Council applied under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to challenge an inspector’s decision allowing an appeal under section 195 against refusal of a certificate of lawfulness under section 192.

The proposed use was occupation of a house by four adults with learning difficulties, with non-resident carers present continuously on a shift system. The central issue was whether the use fell within Class C3(b), as a dwellinghouse occupied by not more than six residents living together as a single household, or Class C2, as residential accommodation and care.

1. Outcome. Both grounds of challenge failed and the claim was dismissed. The Council was ordered to pay the Secretary of State’s agreed costs of £3,457.
2. The inspector had applied the statutory provisions governing Classes C2 and C3. He was not required to refer expressly to North Devon District Council v First Secretary of State, because the case had not been made an issue in the parties’ representations and the inspector had given adequate reasons applying the statutory test.
3. North Devon District Council v First Secretary of State did not establish that full-time care by non-resident carers necessarily prevents occupation as a single household. Its reasoning concerning children did not govern a case concerning adults. To the extent that its wider observations suggested that persons with disabilities who need care can never themselves constitute a household, those observations were obiter and the court declined to follow them.
4. The correct approach is fact-sensitive. The question is whether the residents in the particular premises can sensibly be said to constitute a single household. That may be so notwithstanding disability and a need for full-time care. If carers are resident, the question is whether they and the other residents form a single household; if they are not resident, the residents’ own household may still satisfy Class C3.
5. The approach was consistent with R v Bromley London Borough Council ex p Sinclair and with the fact-and-degree approach endorsed in R (Hossack) v Kettering Borough Council, drawing on Simmons v Pizzey. There are no conclusive indicia of a household.
6. The inspector had rationally evaluated the evidence, including the physical arrangement of the annexe, the residents’ communal activities and the evidence from the site visit. His conclusion that the proposed use involved four residents living together as a single household was reasonably open to him.

The judgment itself was a first-instance judicial review of an inspector’s decision.

• Inspector: Allowed the appeal under section 195 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 against refusal of a certificate of lawfulness under section 192, concluding that the proposed use fell within Class C3(b).
• High Court (Administrative Court): Dismissed the Council’s section 288 challenge.