Bizzy B, R (On the Application Of) v Stockton On Tees

A local authority may enforce a building notice requiring demolition where a building causes serious detriment to neighbourhood amenities. In deciding whether to defer demolition for proposed refurbishment, it may examine the alternative scheme’s commercial viability, funding, asbestos risks, tenant commitments and safeguards for public expenditure. Those matters bear on whether the detriment will be remedied with sufficient certainty. A change from supporting refurbishment to enforcing demolition is not irrational where the authority has allowed time for progress but the alternative remains materially open-ended. If the decision is rational and taken in pursuit of the public interest identified by section 79 of the Building Act 1984, interference with property rights is proportionate for Article 1 of the First Protocol.

Bizzy B owned Billingham House, a long-vacant and dilapidated building. Stockton had served a building notice under section 79 of the Building Act 1984, and Bizzy B had undertaken to elect demolition rather than repair. After repeated delays, the Council supported proposed refurbishment but warned that demolition would proceed unless a satisfactory development agreement and fixed programme were produced.

A development agreement was eventually signed, but the scheme lacked assured funding, tenant commitments and resolution of asbestos concerns. The Council therefore decided to proceed with demolition. The Administrative Court dismissed Bizzy B’s judicial review claim: [2011] EWHC 2325 (Admin). The appeal concerned irrationality and unjustified interference with Article 1 of the First Protocol.

1. Appeal dismissed. The Council’s decision to proceed with demolition was rational and proportionate.
2. The applicable irrationality test was whether the decision was one which no sensible authority, acting with due appreciation of its responsibilities, could have adopted. Administrative discretion permits a choice between more than one rational course.
3. The Council was entitled to consider the history of delay and breach, absent guarantees, asbestos, uncertain funding, absent tenant commitments, contractual termination risks and unreimbursed preparatory expenditure. These were relevant because they bore on whether refurbishment would achieve the statutory purpose of removing the detriment to public amenity.
4. The Council had not acted inconsistently by previously supporting refurbishment. It remained willing to consider that preferable option if it offered sufficient certainty. By February 2011 refurbishment remained open-ended, whereas demolition offered an immediate solution.
5. For Article 1 of the First Protocol, the court assumed that Bizzy B could raise its property rights at enforcement stage. A rational decision pursued in the public interest identified by section 79 of the Building Act 1984 was justified and proportionate.
6. The analogy with Aston Cantlow concerned enforcement of a private-law liability from personal funds, whereas the present decision involved demolition of the property itself.

Lord Justice Hooper and Lord Justice Mummery agreed with Lord Justice Pitchford. The formal order was: appeal dismissed.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): dismissed the appeal against the Administrative Court’s dismissal of the judicial review claim.
• Administrative Court: Mr Charles George QC, sitting as a deputy High Court judge, dismissed the claim challenging Stockton’s decision to proceed with demolition: [2011] EWHC 2325 (Admin).