The applicant, a gypsy had been living for some years on an illegal site with her children. The council closed the site down and she sought assistance as a homeless person. The council accepted her priority need, but she refused the property offered saying that it was very rough and subject to high crime levels. As a gypsy, she said her requirement was not for bricks and mortar housing.
Held: The claimant’s appeal failed. ‘Where land is not available or cannot readily be made available on which a gypsy applicant could stage his or her caravan, it is open to a local authority to provide other accommodation of the conventional bricks and mortar kind provided that it satisfies the Wednesbury minimum line of suitability.’
Laws, Longmore, Richards LJJ
[2008] EWCA Civ 1013
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Codona v Mid-Bedfordshire District Council CA 15-Jul-2004
A homeless gypsy caravan dweller applied for housing. The authority offered temporary bed and breakfast accomodation. She complained that she had an aversion to living in bricks and mortar.
Held: The authority had discharged its function. The . .
Cited – Chapman v United Kingdom; similar ECHR 18-Jan-2001
The question arose as to the refusal of planning permission and the service of an enforcement notice against Mrs Chapman who wished to place her caravan on a plot of land in the Green Belt. The refusal of planning permission and the enforcement . .
Cited – Regina (Price) v Carmarthenshire County Council 2003
A gypsy applied for housing with the respondent authority, but did not wish to live in a house. They suggested that if the claimants had an aversion to accommodation in bricks and mortar then the offer of such accommodation could not amount to the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 13 October 2021; Ref: scu.276401