Lomax v Gosport Borough Council

When deciding whether it is reasonable for a disabled housing applicant to continue occupying accommodation, a local authority must assess the applicant’s individual characteristics, needs and circumstances. The accommodation’s location may be as important as its physical features.

The public sector equality duty applies throughout the decision-making process. Any comparison with general housing conditions must maintain a sharp focus on the nature and extent of the applicant’s disabilities, their consequences and the applicant’s disability-related accommodation needs. The authority must recognise that meeting those needs may require more favourable treatment. A general comparison with applicants whose accommodation merely has an undifferentiated medical or social impact does not satisfy that duty.

The appellant was severely physically and mentally disabled. She occupied an adapted bungalow in rural Dorset but was isolated from her family in Gosport, unable to engage with the local community and dependent upon care arrangements that were becoming unsustainable. Unchallenged evidence showed that the bungalow’s location was damaging her mental health.

She applied to the respondent council for homelessness assistance on the basis that it was unreasonable for her to continue occupying the bungalow. A reviewing officer decided that she was not homeless. He placed substantial weight on the bungalow’s physical suitability and the scarcity of housing in Gosport. Her county court appeal was dismissed by Her Honour Judge Sullivan QC.

On the second appeal, the central issue was whether the reviewing officer had lawfully applied sections 175 and 177 of the Housing Act 1996, read with the public sector equality duty under section 149 of the Equality Act 2010.

1. Appeal allowed unanimously. The reviewing officer’s comparison between the appellant and applicants on the council’s housing list failed to comply with the public sector equality duty. Lewison LJ gave the leading judgment. David Richards and Coulson LJJ agreed.

2. Reasonableness under sections 175 and 177 of the Housing Act 1996 required consideration of all the applicant’s personal characteristics, needs, hopes and fears, followed by an objective assessment of whether it was reasonable for that applicant to continue occupying the accommodation. The accommodation’s location was relevant both to suitability and to the reasonableness of continued occupation: [2006] EWCA Civ 394, [2017] UKSC 36 and [2001] 1 WLR 563 applied.

3. Section 177(2) permitted consideration of housing scarcity, waiting lists and the authority’s capacity to accommodate another household. Where the public sector equality duty was engaged, however, that assessment required modification. The duty applied throughout the decision-making process and could not be confined to a separate section of the review letter.

4. The officer had to focus sharply upon the existence and extent of the disability, its likely effects during continued occupation, the applicant’s disability-related accommodation needs, and the extent to which the accommodation met them. He also had to compare those needs with the needs of persons without the disabilities and recognise that the disabled applicant might require more favourable treatment.

5. The officer’s comparison with applicants experiencing an unspecified medical or social impact did not identify the appropriate comparators, the severity of the respective impacts or the appellant’s limited ability to mitigate them. It therefore failed to account for the real differences between her needs and those of persons without her disabilities. He also failed to ask whether her circumstances were out of the ordinary or out of the norm.

6. The bungalow was not perfectly suitable merely because its adaptations met the appellant’s physical needs. Its isolated location caused or aggravated her depression, contributed to further deterioration and made future physical support unsustainable. The officer overlooked or downplayed that unchallenged evidence and the medical opinion that an immediate move was required. His reliance upon physical suitability and general housing scarcity was consequently erroneous.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division): The appeal was allowed unanimously. The reviewing officer’s decision was vitiated by failures properly to apply the public sector equality duty and to consider the significance of the accommodation’s location.

2. County Court at Portsmouth: Her Honour Judge Sullivan QC dismissed the appellant’s appeal from the homelessness review decision.

3. Gosport Borough Council review: The reviewing officer decided that it was reasonable for the appellant to continue occupying her existing accommodation and that she was therefore not homeless.