Category: Local Government

Regina v Inner London Education Authority, ex parte Westminster City Council: 1986

A political purpose can taint an administrative decision with impropriety.

Judges:

Glidewell J

Citations:

[1986] 1 All ER 19

Cited by:

Cited – Regina v Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs ex Parte the World Development Movement Ltd Admn 10-Nov-1994
The Movement sought to challenge decisions of the Secretary of state to give economic aid to the Pergau Dam, saying that it was not required ‘for the purpose of promoting the development’ of Malaysia. It was said to be uneconomic and damaging. It . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Administrative, Local Government

Updated: 17 May 2022; Ref: scu.262974

Kelly v Monklands District Council: 1986

A local authority’s housing duties may be owed to a child if that child is living independently of its parents.

Citations:

1986 SLT 169

Cited by:

Cited – Royal Borough of Kingston Upon Thames v Prince and Another CA 2-Dec-1998
The Borough’s tenant had died. His wife and daughter had lived with him, but the mother not for long enough to succeed to his tenancy. The daughter (aged thirteen) claimed to have done so having lived with him for three years.
Held: The 1985 . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Scotland, Housing, Children, Local Government

Updated: 17 May 2022; Ref: scu.259630

Berkshire County Council v C and others: QBD 1993

Care proceedings were commenced in respect of two children. The court directed the local authority to carry out an assessment which would require in effect the full time attention of a social worker, the child having been taken into care. The authority replied that it would undertake the assessment but that there would be a delay until a certain date because of a lack of resources. The court then made a further order which repeated the order for an assessment and specified that it should be provided by a certain date, a date which was before the date promised by the authority. The authority appealed.
Held: The court order stood. Provided only that the court had considered and taken proper account of the information on the authority’s resources, and it was not manifestly wrong, there was no scope to vary the order.

Citations:

[1993] 1 FLR 569, [1993] 2 WLR 475

Statutes:

Children Act 1989 38(6)

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Children, Local Government, Magistrates

Updated: 17 May 2022; Ref: scu.228012

Regina v Croydon London Borough Council, ex parte Graham: CA 1993

The very existence of material gaps in the reasons accompanying a decision may have rendered that decision unlawful.

Judges:

Steyn LJ

Citations:

(1993) 26 HLR 286

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – Oxfordshire County Council v GB and Others CA 22-Aug-2001
When an appeal was lodged against the decision of the Special Educational Needs Tribunal, it was wrong for that Tribunal later to expand on its reasons, save in exceptional circumstances. Parental preference was not an overriding consideration, . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Local Government, Housing

Updated: 17 May 2022; Ref: scu.224963

Regina v Commissioner for Local Administration ex parte Croydon London Borough Council: QBD 1989

Delay in application.
Held: The commissioner’s powers cannot depend upon whether the complaint is well founded. He could only act where a complainant did not otherwise have an action at law for a remedy.
As long as no prejudice is caused, the courts will not rely on these provisions to deprive a litigant who has behaved sensibly and reasonably of relief to which he is otherwise entitled.
Woolf LJ said: ‘ . . if the complaint was justified, the person concerned might be entitled to obtain some form of remedy in respect of the subject matter of the complaint if he had commenced proceedings within the appropriate time limits. The commissioner is not concerned to consider whether in fact the proceedings would succeed.’

Judges:

Woolf LJ

Citations:

[1989] 1 All ER 1033, [1989] COD 226, [1989] Fam Law 187

Statutes:

Local Government Act 1974

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Mentioned – Regina (Smeaton) v Secretary of State for Health and Others Admn 18-Apr-2002
The claimant challenged the Order as regards the prescription of the morning-after pill, asserting that the pill would cause miscarriages, and that therefore the use would be an offence under the 1861 Act.
Held: ‘SPUC’s case is that any . .
Cited – JR55, Re Application for Judicial Review (Northern Ireland) SC 11-May-2016
The Court was asked about the powers of the Complaints Commissioner under the 1996 Order, and in particular about his powers in relation to general medical practitioners working in the National Health Service and whether, and if so in what . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Local Government, Administrative

Updated: 16 May 2022; Ref: scu.223701

Nichol v Gateshead Metropolitan Borough Council: CA 1988

Gateshead, confronted by a falling birth rate and therefore an inability to sustain a viable sixth form in all its secondary schools, decided to set up sixth form colleges instead. Local parents had failed to establish that Gateshead’s prior consultation had been unlawful, and appealed.
Held: Gateshead had made clear what the other options were. The appeal failed.
The court described how it was to exercise any discretion it had to give relief on an application for judicial review: ‘The court has an overall discretion as to whether to grant relief or not. In considering how that discretion should be exercised, the court is entitled to have regard to such matters as the following: (1) The nature and importance of the flaw in the challenged decision. (2) The conduct of the applicant. (3) The effect on administration of granting relief.’ It permissible for an authority to have a preferred option (Connor LJ).

Judges:

Taylor LJ, Connor LJ

Citations:

(1988) 87 LGR 435

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – Barwise, Regina (on the Application Of) v Chief Constable of West Midlands Police Admn 8-Jul-2004
The applicant sought judicial review of the decision of the respondent to remove his status of police constable. He had been absent from work with stress for a long time. He had failed to attend appointments on police premises.
Held: The . .
Cited – Regina v Worcestershire Health Council (Arising From the Complaint of Kidderminster and District Community Health Council) CA 28-May-1999
The respondent had planned to downgrade a local hospital, closing the accident and emergency department. This was a renewed application for leave to seek judicial review of the plan. The health authority initially developed and had before them seven . .
Cited – Moseley, Regina (on The Application of) v London Borough of Haringey SC 29-Oct-2014
Consultation requirements
The claimant challenged a decision of the respondent reducing the benefits under the Council Tax Reduction Scheme reducing Council Tax for those in need, saying that the Council’s consultation had been inadequate.
Held: The consultation was . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Judicial Review, Local Government

Updated: 16 May 2022; Ref: scu.200296

Regina v Manchester City Council ex parte King: QBD 1991

When setting licence fees for local traders, the authority had set them at a commercial rate. ‘the judgment of what was a reasonable fee ‘for the purpose of recouping in whole or in part the cots of operating the street trading scheme’ was for members of the local authority. ‘
Roch J said: ‘The fees charged . . must be related to the street trading scheme operated by the district council and the costs of operating that scheme. The district council may charge such fees as they reasonably consider will cover the total cost of operating the street trading scheme or such lesser part of the cost of operating the street trading scheme as they consider reasonable. One consequence of the wording used is that, if the fees levied in the event exceed the cost of operating the scheme, the original position will remain valid provided that it can be said that the district council reasonably considered such fees would be required to meet the total cost of operating the scheme.’

Judges:

Roch J

Citations:

[1991] 89 LGR 696

Cited by:

Cited – West End Street Traders’ Association and Another, Regina (on the Application of) v City of Westminster Admn 21-May-2004
The respondent regulated street trading within its area by licenses issued under the Act. The claimants challenged substantial increases in the licence fees saying there had been insufficient consultation. The system was running at a net cost.
Cited – Hemming (T/A Simply Pleasure Ltd) and Others v Westminster City Council Admn 16-May-2012
The applicant had sought a license for a sex establishment. He paid the (substantial) fee, but complained that the Council had not as required, resolved to set the fee, and that in any event, the sum did not reflect the cost of administering the . .
Cited – Hemming (T/A Simply Pleasure Ltd) and Others, Regina (on The Application of) v The Lord Mayor and Citizens of Westminster CA 24-May-2013
The claimant had submitted an application for a licence to operate a sex shop. On its failure it sought repayment of that part of the fee which related to the costs of supervising the system, rather than the costs of dealing with the application. It . .
Cited – Hemming (T/A Simply Pleasure Ltd) and Others, Regina (on The Application of) v Westminster City Council SC 29-Apr-2015
The parties disputed the returnability of the fees paid on application for a sex establishment licence where the licence was refused. The fee was in part one for the application, and a second and greater element related to the costs of monitoring . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Local Government

Updated: 16 May 2022; Ref: scu.197719

Cheshire County Council v Secretary of State for the Environment: 1988

The court was asked as to the authority of an assistant solicitor to issue an enforcement notice when the standing orders which dealt with delegated powers referred in this context, but not in others, to the County Solicitor and Secretary alone. The Secretary of State for the Environment had allowed an appeal against the enforcement notice on the basis that where a delegation had taken place to a named officer, a subordinate to whom no delegation had been made had no power to exercise the relevant discretion.
Held: The Secretary of States’s distinguishment of the Provident Mutual Life case was wrong. That decision was of general application and not just restricted to rating cases.

Judges:

Schiemann J

Citations:

[1988] JPL 30

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

Explained – Provident Mutual Life Assurance Association v Derbyshire City Council HL 1981
The particular individual on whom the task of forming the relevant opinion had been imposed by statute could not possibly perform all the tasks delegated to the relevant financial officer. He had, and needed, a staff to perform his functions, and it . .

Cited by:

Cited – Younger Homes (Northern) Ltd v First Secretary of State and Another Admn 26-Nov-2003
The claimant sought to quash a planning decision on the basis that a screening decision had not been made.
Held: Though the procedures within the authority could have been bettered, there was no formal requirement for a screening option to . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Local Government

Updated: 16 May 2022; Ref: scu.192004

Regina v Commissioner for Local Administration ex parte Eastleigh Borough Council: CA 1988

Maladministration includes bias, neglect, inattention, delay, incompetence, inaptitude, perversity, turpitude and arbitrariness in reaching a decision or exercising a discretion, but that it has nothing to do with the intrinsic merits of the decision itself.
Lord Donaldson of Lymington MR set out the correct view of the relationship between a local authority and the Ombudsman: ‘There is the suggestion that the Council should issue a statement disputing the right of the Ombudsman to make his findings and that this would provide the Council with an adequate remedy. Such an action would wholly undermine the system of Ombudsman’s reports and would, in effect, provide for an appeal to the media against his findings. The parliamentary intention was that reports by Ombudsmen should be loyally accepted by the local authorities concerned. This is clear from Section 30, subsection 4 and subsection 5 which require the local authority to make the report available for inspection by the public and to advertise this fact, from Section 31(1) which requires the local authority to notify the Ombudsman of the action which it has taken and proposes to take in the light of his report and from Section 31(2) which entitles the Ombudsman to make a further report if the local authority’s response is not satisfactory.’

Judges:

Lord Donaldson of Lymington MR

Citations:

[1988] QB 853

Statutes:

Local Government Act 1974

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – Legal and General Assurance Society Ltd v CCA Stationery Ltd ChD 12-Dec-2003
The claimant had managed a pension scheme for the respondent company. It now challenged a finding of maladministration of the scheme, with respect to the methods of calculation of discounts applicable to those leaving the scheme.
Held: Since . .
Approved – Bradley and Others, Regina (on the Application of) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions CA 7-Feb-2008
Complaint was made as to a leaflet PEC 3 issued by the Department in 1996, intended to summarise the changes introduced by the Pensions Act 1995, and their purpose. One answer given was: ‘The Government wanted to remove any worries people had about . .
Cited – Gallagher and Another, Regina (on The Application of) v Basildon District Council Admn 9-Nov-2010
The claimant challenged the refusal of the Council to pay compensation as recommended by the Ombudsman. The Council had gathered personal details and information of the claimants in the course of a planning dispute, and then published that . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Administrative, Local Government

Updated: 16 May 2022; Ref: scu.188826

Regina v Brent London Boriugh Council, ex parte Assegai: 1987

A committee of the Borough resolved to ban Mr Assegai, who had been involved in a fracas and had made offensive remarks to two Councillors, from visiting any of the Borough’s properties. The resolution also purported to remove him from his appointment as a Community Governor of a school. Mr Assegai sought to have the ban quashed.
Held: He succeeded. He was banned from visiting all Council properties, irrespective of circumstances. This was wholly out of proportion to his offences. Such a lack of proportion was itself held to be indicative of unreasonableness in a ‘Wednesbury’ sense.

Judges:

Woolf LJ

Citations:

(1987) 151 LGR 891

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – Regina on the Application of Isle of Anglesey County Council v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Admn 30-Oct-2003
The claimant council sought re-imbursement from the Secretary of the excess housing benefit payments it had made to claimants. The system expected the Council to have made referrals of high rents to rent officers. The respondent had decided that it . .
Cited – Wandsworth London Borough Council v A CA 20-Jan-2000
A was a parent of a child. The school complained of A’s behaviour when visiting the school, and was refused a licence to enter the premises without being accompanied. The behaviour continued, and an injunction was obtained.
Held: The order was . .
Cited – Montgomery, Regina (on the Application of) v Hertfordshire County Council Admn 2-Sep-2005
The applicant, a former senior employee sought review of an order banning her from all the respondent’s premises. She had left the employment after a settlement, but the order would make it impossible to continue the work she had later taken up.
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Local Government

Updated: 16 May 2022; Ref: scu.187289

Walters v Babergh District Council: 1983

An action was brought for for negligence and/or breach of statutory duty under the 1936 Act. The plaintiff alleged that Melford Rural District Council (‘Melford’: the Defendant Council’s predecessor) had failed to inspect with reasonable care the foundations of the house that he was building. However, by the time the plaintiff noticed the defects, Melford had ceased to exist as a result of local government reorganisation. The plaintiff therefore sued the defendant, Babergh District Council (‘Babergh’), on the basis that ‘all property and liabilities vesting in or attaching to’ Melford had been transferred to Babergh by virtue of section 16(3)(a) of the Local Authorities (England)(Property, etc.) Order 1973. The issue in the case was whether ‘liabilities’ should be limited to crystallised liabilities or whether it should also include potential or contingent liabilities.
Held: The general purpose of the Act and the regulations made under it was to ‘ensure that the reorganisation would not affect events which would otherwise have occurred further than is absolutely necessary because of that reorganisation. That the public should be able to look to the new authority precisely in respect of those matters which it could look to the old authority; that the public’s position should be no better or no worse.’ The word ‘liabilities’ should be construed to include ‘contingent or potential liabilities’ : ‘The whole tenor of the order is designed to ensure that the reorganisation should not effect (sic) events which would otherwise have occurred further than is absolutely necessary because of that reorganisation. That the public should be able to look to the new authority precisely in respect of those matters which it could look to the old authority; that the public’s position should be no better or no worse.’

Judges:

Woolf J

Citations:

[1983] 82 LGR 235

Statutes:

Local Government Act 1972, Public Health Act 1936, Local Authorities (England)(Property, etc.) Order 1973

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – William Sindall Plc v Cambridgeshire County Council CA 21-May-1993
Land was bought for development, but the purchaser later discovered a sewage pipe which very substantially limited its development potential. The existence of the pipe had not been disclosed on the sale, being unknown to the seller.
Held: . .
Cited – National Grid Gas Plc, Regina (on the Application of) v The Environment Agency Admn 17-May-2006
The claimant sought a judicial review of the decision to hold them responsible for necessary works of remediation. They were statutory successors to British Gas Corporation.
Held: The legislation clearly attempted to hold the contaminator . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Local Government

Updated: 16 May 2022; Ref: scu.185667

City Leisure (Holdings) Ltd v Lord Mayor and Citizens of the City of Westminster: ComC 6 Apr 1995

Contract – ultra vires – power of local authority to grant an indemnity – power of local authority to borrow – acquiring the use of borrowed money

Judges:

Phillips J

Citations:

Unreported, 06 April 1995

Statutes:

Local Government Act 1972 111, Local Government (Miscellaneous) Provisions Act 1976 19(1)

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Contract, Local Government

Updated: 16 May 2022; Ref: scu.182571

Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council v Shaw: QBD 2000

Two senior and long term employees of the Council proposed voluntary early redundancy. After discussions, their contracts were varied with enhanced pay so that they would also have enhanced pensions and redundancy payments. Such enhancing agreements were not part of any long term policy of the Council, but were negotiated ‘one-off’ at a time when the employees had already given many years of service without any expectation of the benefits conferred by the agreements.
Held: the payments made by the authority to staff were ultra vires and unlawful, being merely a ruse to inflate pension and redundancy payments, and were negotiated one-off payments.
Bell J said: ‘The council is a statutory corporation, created by the Local Government Act 1972, and its powers to act are limited to those functions which are conferred on it, particularly in relation to this case by sections 111 and 112, so Mr Ground relied on the case of Allsop (supra) saying that the increase in salary was clearly a ruse to provide Mr Shaw with more than the Acts and regulations allowed by way of redundancy and superannuation payments on his true salary, i.e. what his salary would have been over the last years of service without the increase made for the improper purpose of providing him with terms of redundancy and early retirement which he would accept, but which were above what the statutory provisions and regulations would allow . . In my judgment all these arguments come back to the same fundamental question of whether the agreed salary increase for Mr Shaw was lawful or not. Asking (as the first issue in respect of the action against Mr Shaw asks) whether the agreement dated 4 January 1990 was ‘beyond the powers of the council’ is just another way of asking whether it was contrary to law. In my view the authorities to which I have referred make it clear that a pay increase which is made by a statutory local authority like the council for the purpose or main purpose of enhancing an employee’s redundancy or retirement benefits is unlawful and beyond the powers of the council to make and an agreement to make it is void, because it is not in reality a decision made in the exercise of the council’s power to fix rates of pay, but for the extraneous or collateral purpose of increasing the employee’s redundancy or retirement benefits beyond what the Acts and regulations would allow, but for the increase in pay. The fact that the pay increase can be justified and seen as reasonable in itself does not save it if its real purpose is to enhance redundancy or retirement benefits.’ and ,br />’In all those circumstances I have no hesitation in finding that the salary increase in Mr Shaw’s salary was made entirely for the extraneous, collateral and, indeed improper purpose of increasing Mr Shaw’s redundancy and pension entitlements to figures which he found acceptable, beyond the figures which the Acts and regulations would otherwise have allowed, and that it was for this reason an unlawful increase which no reasonable council could make. It was illegal and beyond the powers of the council to make and avoid.’

Judges:

Bell J

Citations:

[2000] LGR 9

Statutes:

Local Government Act 1972 111 112

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

Applied – Roberts v Hopwood HL 1925
The district auditor for Poplar Council had surcharged council members for making payments of a minimum wage of andpound;4 a week to their lowest grade of workers. This was notwithstanding that the cost of living had fallen during the year from 176% . .

Cited by:

Cited – The London Borough of Barking and Dagenham v Watts ChD 26-Feb-2003
The applicant local authority appealed a finding by the pensions ombudsman that it was unlawful for it to have stopped paying to the respondent the enhanced part of her pension benefits.
Held: The enhanced pension scheme was not unlawful, . .
Cited – Eastbourne Borough Council v James Foster CA 11-Jul-2001
An employee’s job ceased, but he continued to be employed by the same employer on different tasks, but the new arrangement was void as ultra vires. The question arose as to whether his employment had been terminated at the time of the change in such . .
Cited – London Borough of Tower Hamlets v Wooster EAT 10-Sep-2009
EAT AGE DISCRIMINATION
UNFAIR DISMISSAL – Polkey deduction
Council employee seconded to registered social landlord – Secondment comes to an end, so that he is formally redundant – Employee aged 49 and . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Local Government

Updated: 16 May 2022; Ref: scu.180119

Regina (Khan) v Oxfordshire County Council: QBD 4 Oct 2002

The applicant sought review of the authority’s decision not to offer her housing. She was subject to immigration control. She had been the victim of domestic violence and of abduction.
Held: The authority could provide assistance under either Act, unless prohibited by statute. The limitation in the 1948 statute did apply to restrict the authority’s decision under the 2000 Act. Nevertheless, in the particular circumstances the decision not to provide assistance was unreasonable, and review was granted.

Judges:

Moses J

Citations:

Gazette 31-Oct-2002, Times 04-Nov-2002

Statutes:

Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 115, National Assistance Act 1948 21(1)(a)

Immigration, Housing, Local Government

Updated: 16 May 2022; Ref: scu.177845

Regina v London Borough of Brent, ex parte Blatt: QBD 1991

The applicant was the respondent’s secure tenant. The respondent decided to change its tenancy agreement, by including a list of items of repair for which it would be responsible and a procedure by which it could vary the terms of the agreement. In a further clause the respondent agreed that no variation might be made to the agreement which either reduced the respondent’s repair obligations or made them more difficult to enforce or which reduced the tenant’s security of tenure under the agreement. The respondent later decided to remove the list of its repair obligations from the agreement, to remove the contractual security of tenure provisions and to replace them with the grounds provided by the Act and to remove the variation clause, including clause 8(b). The tenant sought judicial review.
Held: Section 102 of the Act gave power to the respondent to vary the terms of a secure tenancy; clause 8(b) was itself a term of the tenancy and so could itself be varied by deletion pursuant to statutory procedure. It was a matter of construction of the statute.
Leggatt LJ: ‘Mr. Watkinson argues that it was open to the Council to agree not to exercise the power given by section 103. He says that that is what the council did in 1981 as a result of negotiations with the tenants’ associations. He submits that the effect of including clause 8(b) in the old Agreement was to preclude the Council thereafter from varying the standard form by reducing the security of tenure of tenants under the Agreement. The respondents, therefore, cannot now reduce the quality of the security, as they have purported to do in the fashion complained of under the applicant’s first argument. Attractive though the argument is, especially since that is what the average tenant might expect the position to be, it cannot, in my judgment, prevail over the language of the statute. Section 102 gives power to the Council to vary the terms of a secure tenancy by Agreement with the tenants, or alternatively, in accordance with section 103 by giving notice of variation of a periodic tenancy following compliance with the statutory arrangements for a preliminary notice. In that way the respondents can in effect vary the terms of the tenancy unilaterally. Clause 8(b) is itself a term of the tenancy, so it can be varied by deletion. It does not, after all, contain or constitute a promise that it will not itself be revoked. In truth, however, as I have earlier indicated, this represents no substantial diminution in the tenants’ rights. Their basic protection is afforded by the statute, and such embellishments of that protection as were brought about by contract, would, if enforceable, only have been of value in the event that the statutory protection was itself reduced in future . . .’
Owen J: ‘. . . I would only add that whilst not finding that it is possible I am far from convinced that it would be impossible for a local authority to contract out the powers given by sections 102 and 103 of the Housing Act 1985. However, if such a contracting out is possible, then it would need to be both clear and explicit. I am satisfied there was no such contracting out here. Once that conclusion is accepted, then the changes intended to be made by the proposed Tenancy Agreement do not provide a sufficient Basis for the application made here. . .’

Judges:

Leggatt LJ, Owen J

Citations:

(1991) 24 HLR 319

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – North British Housing Association Ltd v Sheridan CA 29-Jul-1999
The respondent appealed against an order for possession made on the grounds that he had been convicted of breach of an order under the 1997 Act in harassing his daughter who lived nearby the premises. The tenant argued that the agreement had . .
Cited – Kilby v Basildon District Council Admn 26-Jul-2006
Tenants complained that the authority landlord had purported to vary a clause in his secure tenancy agreement which gave certain management rights to tenants.
Held: The powers to let on secure tenancies were governed by statute. The clause . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Housing, Local Government

Updated: 16 May 2022; Ref: scu.221434

Attorney General v De Winton: 1906

The Borough operated using all its borrowing powers. Its accounts were conducted in the name of its treasurer. The accounts were properly audited. A burgess complained at the payment of the interest on the loan accounts to the treasurer for payment to the banks.
Held: That the accounts had been audited did not stay such an action. There was nothing in the Act to make th eaudit binding on the Burgesses.

Judges:

Farwell J

Citations:

[1906] 2 Ch 106, [1906] 75 LJ Ch 612, (1906) 70 JP 368, (1906) 54 WR 499, [1906] 22 TLR 446, [1906] 50 Sol Jo 405, [1906] 4 LGR 549

Statutes:

Municipal Corporations Act 1882

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – Helena Partnerships Ltd v HM Revenue and Customs CA 9-May-2012
The company had undertaken substantial building works and sought associated tax relief. The court was asked whether, following a change in the company’s memorandum and articles of association, the company, a registered social landlord, remained a . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Local Government

Updated: 15 May 2022; Ref: scu.464220

Page Motors Limited v Epsom and Ewell Borough Council: QBD 1980

The plaintiff company were tenants of land adjoining land owned by the defendant council. Gypsies came to occupy the defendant’s land over several years and in increasing numbers. The Authority had obtained a possession order but had failed to enforce it being concerned that with no proper site elsewhere to move onto further damage would be caused. The plaintiffs claimed for damages in their reduced turnover.
Held: The plaintiffs succeeded. The defendants had the power and duty to provide alternative sites, and their delay of five years was unreasonable. The choice not to enforce the possession orders was from the Council’s own desire to avoid disturbance elsewhere, and therefore amounted to an adoption of the nuisance. However, the drop in turnover would not necessarily reflect directly in a loss of profit, and the plaintiff’s had to give credit for the associated reduction in their rating assessment.

Judges:

Balcombe J

Citations:

(1980) 78 LGR 505

Cited by:

Appeal from – Page Motors v Epsom Borough Council CA 9-Jul-1981
The plaintiffs were lessees of land neighbouring that of the Council. Over several years the council’s land had been occupied by gypsies who, it was said had damaged the plaintiff’s business. Though the Council had obtained a possession order in . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Nuisance, Local Government, Damages

Updated: 15 May 2022; Ref: scu.445030

The Queen v The Mayor, Aldermen, And Burgesses of Sandwich: 1842

A town clerk dismissed from office after stat. 5 and. 6 W. 4, c. 76, applied to the town council for compensation under sect. 66. They resolved, after deliberation,
that, considering the tenure of the office, and other circumstances, his claim was inadmissible, and they disallowed it, reserving to themselves the right of examining into the question of amount if their decision should be over-ruled on appeal. No other determination was come to within six: calendar months of the application. Held that the council had so far determined on such claim within the six months that the claim could not be ‘considered as admitted,’ according to sect. 66, though they had not provisionally fixed the amount of compensation. On appeal to the Lords of the Treasury against a judgment of the town council on a claim of compensation, the Lords have no jurisdiction to enquire into the claimant’s title, but are confined to the question of amount. And this, whether the officer has been dismissed after reappointment, or without having been reappointed, since the passing of the Act. On appeal made after the resolution above stated, the Lords of the Treasury adjudicated on the title, and awarded a less compensation than that demanded ; and the appellant then moved this Court for a mandamus to the council to give a bond for the sum originally demanded, as in case of an admitted claim under sect. 66. The Court, on cause shewn, ordered a mandamus generally requiring the council to award compensation.
[S. C, 2 G. and D.

Citations:

[1842] EngR 87, (1842) 2 QB 895, (1842) 114 ER 347

Links:

Commonlii

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Local Government

Updated: 15 May 2022; Ref: scu.307042

The Queen v The Inhabitants of St Sepulchre: 20 Nov 1844

A pauper was removed to S. on the examination of P. and A. P. deposed that, on 22nd July 1839, he let to pauper’s husband a house in S., ‘at the rent of 10 1. per year,” that the husband ‘occupied the house until 22d July 1841,’ and paid P. ‘the whole of the rent during that time.’ A. deposed that the husband in July 1839 went to the house, and ‘resided in that house until March I8. Held, dissentienite Coleridge J., that the sessions were not entitled to affirm the order of removal, the examinations not shewing that the house had been occupied for a year under a yearly hiring within stat. 2 W 4 c 18 s 1

Citations:

[1844] EngR 1000, (1844) 6 QB 580, (1844) 115 ER 217

Links:

Commonlii

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Local Government

Updated: 15 May 2022; Ref: scu.305592

The Queen v The Inhabitants of Whissendine: 1842

Pauper; being settled by apprenticeship in M., gained a subsequent settlement in W. by residing on an estate there, but, becoming lunatic while he continued to reside on the same estate, he was, after the passing of stat. 4 and 6 W. 4, c. 76, removed by his relations to the county lunatic asylum, more than ten miles from W., and was for several years maintained in that asylum, partly by his relatives, partly by the rents of his said estate, until, those resources proving inadequate, he was taken from the asylum and brought to W. for one night, and was then removed as a pauper lunatic to the same asylum, by warrant under stat. 9 G. 4, c. 40, s. 38. Held, that, an order of justices on the overseers of W., under the last-mentioned clause, for the payment of a weekly sum for his maintenance in the asylum, was wrong, the pauper having, under stat. 4 and 5 W, 4, c. 76, s. 68, lost his settlement in W. by ceasing to inhabit.

Citations:

[1842] EngR 86, (1842) 2 QB 450, (1842) 114 ER 178

Links:

Commonlii

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Benefits, Local Government

Updated: 15 May 2022; Ref: scu.307041

The Queen v The Inhabitants Of Wellington: 19 Nov 1845

Where the parish applying to remove a pauper proves before the justices a former removal, acquiesced in, to the parish now about to be charged, and produces the order of removal, such order, or a copy, must be sent to the latter parish, under stat. 4: and 5 W. 4, c. 76, s 79.
On appeal against an order of justices, removing James Hindley and his wife and two children from the parish of Wellington in Shropshire, to the parish, in the borough of Wslsall, Staffordshire, the sessions quashed the order, subject to the opinion of this Court on a special case.

Citations:

[1845] EngR 1275, (1845) 11 QB 65, (1845) 116 ER 400

Links:

Commonlii

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Local Government, Benefits

Updated: 15 May 2022; Ref: scu.304417

The Queen v The Inhabitants Of Sandon: 21 Apr 1854

An indictmerit preferred at the Assizes, for non-repair of a highway, by order of justices under stat. 5 and 6 W. 4, c. 60, s. 95, is removeable by certiorari at the instance of the defendants.

Citations:

[1854] EngR 408, (1854) 3 El and Bl 547, (1854) 118 ER 1247

Links:

Commonlii

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Land, Local Government

Updated: 15 May 2022; Ref: scu.293265

The Board of Works for The Poplar District v Nicholas Knight And Henry Weitzell: 26 May 1858

A wall had been erected from time immemorial on land adjacent to a tidal river; and it kept out from such land the river at high water, the land being drained into the river by drains at a considerable distance from the wall.

Citations:

[1858] EngR 724, (1858) El Bl and El 408, (1858) 120 ER 561

Links:

Commonlii

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Local Government, Land

Updated: 15 May 2022; Ref: scu.289195

Regina v Swansea City Council, ex parte Elitestone Ltd: QBD 1993

On 1 May a sub-committee held a meeting at which land was declared to be a conservation area. Under the Act, the agenda had been open for inspection for three clear days. They were available from April 26, and there was no suggestion that they had not been available for any part of that working day.
Held: The application was dismissed. The section actually required the agenda and report to be open for inspection for at least three days before the meeting. Parliament had intended that three full days before the meeting, members of the public should have opportunity to inspect them. They had been available for the whole of April 6, 27 and 30, and the meeting on 1 May went ahead properly.

Judges:

MacPherson J

Citations:

Ind Summary 31-May-1993, Times 13-May-1993, [1993] 90 LGR 604, (1993) 66 P and CR 422

Statutes:

Local Government Act 1972 1(1) 100B

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Appeal From – Regina v Swansea City Council, ex parte Elitestone Ltd CA 5-May-1993
The company appellant, E, wished to develop its land. The Council had declared it to be a conservation area. E said that they had not given the necessary notice of the meeting of the sub-committee at which the initial decision had been made. E . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Local Government, Planning

Updated: 15 May 2022; Ref: scu.88139

Paterson and Another v Humberside County Council: QBD 19 Apr 1995

A local authority was liable for nuisance for damage (cracks to house) caused by tree roots once it could be shown that it knew of the soil condition, by virtue of the council’s own warnings to residents of the danger in the area meant that the damage was foreseeable. The council was not liable for breach of statutory under the 1980 Act since it had not planted the trees.
The test of foreseeability was whether the risk was one which a reasonable person in the Defendant’s position would have regarded as a real risk as distinct from a risk which he would have been justified in disregarding and taking no steps to eliminate

Judges:

Mr Toulson QC

Citations:

Times 19-Apr-1995, [1995] CLY 3661, [1996] Const LJ 64

Statutes:

Highways Act 1980 96

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

Cited – Banque Bruxelles Lambert Sa v Eagle Star Insurance Co Ltd and Others CA 24-Feb-1995
The plaintiffs were mortgagees. The defendants were valuers. The defendants negligently over-valued properties and the plaintiffs then accepted mortgages of the properties. Later the property market collapsed and the various borrowers defaulted and . .

Cited by:

Cited – Loftus-Brigham and Another v London Borough of Ealing CA 28-Oct-2003
The claimants sought to recover for damages caused to their house foundations by trees growing nearby which were the responsibility of the defendants. The defendants replied that the damages was caused in part by roots from virgina creeper and . .
Cited – Berent v Family Mosaic Housing and Others TCC 25-May-2011
The claimant sought damages for subsidence to her property allegedly caused by the roots of trees on the defendants’ properties. Two large plane trees stood in the pavement outside the house and about 12 metres from it. . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Nuisance, Negligence, Local Government

Updated: 15 May 2022; Ref: scu.84608

Hussain v Bradford City Council: QBD 15 Feb 1993

If a complaint was made that a private hire vehicle was acting in contravention of the regulation, requiring it to display the licence plate issued by the local authority, indicating the maximum number of passengers, it was necessary for the prosecution to prove that the vehicle was plying for hire at the time of the alleged offence.

Citations:

Ind Summary 15-Feb-1993

Statutes:

Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 48 (6)(b)

Local Government, Licensing, Transport, Crime

Updated: 15 May 2022; Ref: scu.81565

Barkas, Regina (on The Application of ) v North Yorkshire County Council and Another: SC 6 Mar 2014

The Court was asked as to the registration of a playing field as a ‘town or village green’. Local residents asserted that their use of the land, having been ‘as of right’ required the registration. They now appealed against rejection of that argument.
Held: The basic issues was ‘where land is provided and maintained by a local authority pursuant to section 12(1) of the Housing Act 1985 or its statutory predecessors, is the use of that land by the public for recreational purposes ‘as of right’ within the meaning of section 15(2)(a) of the Commons Act 2006?’
Held: The residents’ appeal failed. The local residents were enjoying the rights over the land ‘by right’ and not ‘as of right’ and the land was not registrable under the 2006 Act as a town or village green.
Lord Neuberger said: ‘So long as land is held under a provision such as section 12(1) of the 1985 Act, it appears to me that members of the public have a statutory right to use the land for recreational purposes, and therefore they use the land ‘by right’ and not as trespassers, so that no question of user ‘as of right’ can arise.’ and ‘ a reasonable local authority in the position of the Council would have regarded the presence of members of the public on the Field, walking with or without dogs, taking part in sports, or letting their children play, as being pursuant to their statutory right to be on the land and to use it for these activities, given that the Field was being held and maintained by the Council for public recreation pursuant to section 12(1) of the 1985 Act and its statutory predecessors.’
. . And: ‘ if the landowner has in some way actually communicated agreement to what would otherwise be a trespass, whether or not gratuitously, then he cannot claim it has been or is unlawful – at least until he lawfully withdraws his agreement to it. For the same reason, even if such an agreed arrangement had continued for 20 years, there can be no question of it giving rise to a prescriptive right because it would clearly have been precario, and therefore ‘by right’.’

Judges:

Lord Neuberger, President, Lady Hale, Deputy President, Lord Reed, Lord Carnwath, Lord Hughes

Citations:

[2014] 3 All ER 178, [2014] UKSC 31, [2014] HLR 36, [2014] 2 WLR 1360, [2014] WLR(D) 228, [2014] BLGR 459, UKSC 2013/0035, [2015] 1 AC 195, [2014] HLR 36

Links:

Bailii, Bailii Summary, WLRD, SC Summary, SC

Statutes:

Commons Act 2006 15

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

Cited – HE Green and Sons v Minister of Health (No 2) 1948
On an application under the 1936 Ac, provided that the field benefited council tenants (which it clearly did) it did not matter that it also benefited other people within the local community.
Denning J said: ‘The next question is whether the . .
At Admin – Barkas, Regina (on The Application of) v North Yorkshire County Council and Scarborough Council Admn 20-Dec-2011
The claimants sought to have registered as a town or village green land in Whitby which had been provided as a playing field by the Local Authority since 1934. The inspector had found that the use had not been ‘as of right’ as required by the 2006 . .
Overruled – Regina v City of Sunderland ex parte Beresford HL 13-Nov-2003
Land had been used as a park for many years. The council land owner refused to register it as a common, saying that by maintaining the park it had indicated that the use was by consent and licence, and that prescription did not apply.
Held: . .
Appeal from – Barkas v North Yorkshire County Council CA 23-Oct-2012
The court was asked: ‘When local inhabitants indulge in lawful sports and pastimes on a recreation ground which has been provided for that purpose by a local authority in the exercise of its statutory powers, do they do so ‘by right’ or ‘as of . .
Cited – Hall v Beckenham Corporation 1949
A claim was made in nuisance against the local authority, the owner of a public park, in which members of the public flew noisy model aircraft.
Held: The local authority were not liable as the occupiers of the park for an alleged nuisance that . .
Cited – Regina v Oxfordshire County Council and Another, Ex Parte Sunningwell Parish Council HL 25-Jun-1999
When setting out to establish that a piece of land has become a village green with rights of common, the tests are similar to those used in the law of prescription and adverse possession. Accordingly, there is no need to establish a belief in those . .
Cited – Lewis, Regina (on The Application of) v Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council and Another SC 3-Mar-2010
The claimants sought to have land belonging to the council registered as a village green to prevent it being developed. They said that it had for more than twenty years been used by the community for various sports. The council replied that it had . .
Cited – Gardner v Hodgson’s Kingston Brewery Co HL 1903
The party claiming a right of way through the yard of a neighbouring inn, and her predecessors in title, had for well over 40 years used the inn yard (the only means of access with carts and horses to her premises) and had paid the annual sum of 15 . .
Cited – Dalton v Henry Angus and Co 1877
Fry J said: ‘ . .I cannot imagine any case of acquiescence in which there is not shown to be in the servient owner: 1, a knowledge of the acts done; 2, a power in him to stop the acts or to sue in respect of them; and 3, an abstinence on his part . .
Cited – Lawrence and Another v Fen Tigers Ltd and Others CA 2012
Jackson LJ set out the way in which planning consents would affect whether actions amounted to a nuisance: ‘I would summarise the law which is relevant to the first ground of appeal in four propositions. (i) A planning authority by the grant of . .
Cited – Lambeth Overseers v London County Council HL 1897
The House was asked whether the county council, which owned and maintained a park under a power accorded by a local Act of Parliament, were in rateable occupation of it.
Held: Lord Halsbury said that: ‘there is no possibility of beneficial . .
Cited – Mills and Another v Silver and others CA 6-Jul-1990
A farm’s only vehicular access was over land which was only useable occasionally when dry. The defendants laid a stone track to facilitate constant access. At first instance it was held that the earlier use had been too intermittent to allow a . .
Cited – Cumbernauld and Kilsyth District Council v Dollar Land (Cumbernauld) Ltd SCS 1992
(Inner House) When Cumbernauld town centre was built, a walkway was provided between the shopping centre and residential areas. It was used for many years, but then closed to prevent crime. The authority sought an interdict to keep it open as a . .
Cited – Cumbernauld and Kilsyth District Council v Dollar Land (Cumbernauld) Ltd HL 22-Jul-1993
A walkway had existed from the town centre to residential areas. When the land was acquired the defendant new owners sought to close the walkway. The authority asserted that a public right of way had been acquired.
Held: There was no need to . .
Approved – Regina v City of Sunderland, ex parte Beresford Admn 14-Nov-2000
A recreational area was claimed to be a common. The council considered that there was evidence, which it accepted, of an implied licence, thus enabling the inference to be drawn that the use by local inhabitants for statutory purposes had not been . .

Cited by:

Cited – Newhaven Port and Properties Ltd, Regina (on The Application of) v East Sussex County Council and Another SC 25-Feb-2015
The court was asked: ‘whether East Sussex County Council . . was wrong in law to decide to register an area . . known as West Beach at Newhaven . . as a village green pursuant to the provisions of the Commons Act 2006. The points of principle raised . .
Cited – Winterburn and Another v Bennett and Another CA 25-May-2016
The court was asked as to the steps which an owner of land must take to prevent others, who were using the land without permission, acquiring rights over the land. The claimants here had ignored clear signs placed on the land which asserted the . .
Cited – Adamson, Regina (on The Application of) v Kirklees Metropolitan Borough Council CA 18-Feb-2020
Appropriation was not in sufficient form
The claimants had challenged an order supporting the decision of the Council to use their allotments for a new primary school, saying that the land had be appropriated as allotment land, and that therefore the consent of the minister was needed.
Cited – Lancashire County Council, Regina (on The Application of) v SSEFRA and Another SC 11-Dec-2019
Two appeals as to the circumstances in which the concept of ‘statutory incompatibility’ will defeat an application to register land as a town or village green where the land is held by a public authority for statutory purposes. In the first case, . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Land, Local Government

Leading Case

Updated: 15 May 2022; Ref: scu.526192

Regina (Bedford) v London Borough of Islington: 2003

Citations:

[2003] Env LR 22

Cited by:

Cited – Eisai Ltd, Regina (on the Application of) v National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) and Shire Pharmaceuticals Limited and Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (Interveners) CA 1-May-2008
The applicant pharmaceutical companies challenged the decision of the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) to to list certain drugs saying that the procedure adopted was unfair. NICE had revealed that results of calculations it had made . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Local Government

Updated: 15 May 2022; Ref: scu.267533

Lancashire County Council v The Secretary of State for The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Another: Admn 27 May 2016

Ouseley J he said that he would have arrived at a different conclusion from the Inspector as to the purpose for which the Authority had acquired the land at issue; but considered that that did not entitle him to interfere with the inspector’s evaluation of the evidence: ‘I can see no real reason not to conclude, on that basis, that the acquisition was for educational purposes. No other statutory purpose for the acquisition was put forward; there was no suggestion that the parcels were acquired for public open space. I would have inferred that there were resolutions in existence authorising the acquisitions for that contemporaneously evidenced intended purpose, which simply had not been found at this considerable distance in time. It would be highly improbable for the lands to have been purchased without resolutions approving it. The presumption of regularity would warrant the assumption that there had been resolutions to that effect, and that the purpose resolved upon would have been the one endorsed on the conveyances. This is reinforced by the evidence in DL para 116, which shows the property, after acquisition, to be managed by or on behalf of the Education Committee. The actual use made of some of the land is of limited value in relation to the basis of its acquisition or continued holding.’

Judges:

Ouseley J

Citations:

[2016] EWHC 1238 (Admin)

Links:

Bailii

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Appeal from – Lancashire County Council, Regina (on The Application of) v Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Another CA 12-Apr-2018
The court was asked: ‘Did the concept of ‘statutory incompatibility’ defeat an application for the registration of land as a town or village green under section 15 of the Commons Act 2006? ‘ At first instance, the judge had held that he could not . .
Cited – Adamson, Regina (on The Application of) v Kirklees Metropolitan Borough Council CA 18-Feb-2020
Appropriation was not in sufficient form
The claimants had challenged an order supporting the decision of the Council to use their allotments for a new primary school, saying that the land had be appropriated as allotment land, and that therefore the consent of the minister was needed.
At Admn – Lancashire County Council, Regina (on The Application of) v SSEFRA and Another SC 11-Dec-2019
Two appeals as to the circumstances in which the concept of ‘statutory incompatibility’ will defeat an application to register land as a town or village green where the land is held by a public authority for statutory purposes. In the first case, . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Land, Local Government

Updated: 15 May 2022; Ref: scu.565341

Nash v Finlay: 1902

The court considered the validity a byelaw. It was challenged for being unclear. It provided that: ‘No person shall wilfully annoy passengers in the streets.’ Other byelaws in the same instrument proscribed more specific forms of ‘annoyance’.
Held: The byelaw was invalid for uncertainty.
Lord Alverstone CJ said that: ‘. . the byelaws have endeavoured to deal with specific annoyances, and, that being so, it is difficult to understand what this particular byelaw was intended to cover that is not within the ambit of the others. I therefore think that this byelaw is not valid.’
Channell J said: ‘I think we must be understood to base our decision on the want of certainty in this byelaw . . in my opinion it does not give an adequate intimation of what it is that it intends to prohibit.’

Judges:

Lord Alverstone CJ , Darling J, Channell J

Citations:

(1902) 85 LT 682

Cited by:

Cited – Tabernacle v Secretary of State for Defence Admn 6-Mar-2008
The court considered the validity of bye-laws used to exclude protesters from land near a military base at Aldermarston.
Held: The byelaw which banned an ‘camp’ was sufficiently certain, but not that part which sought to ban any person who . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Local Government

Updated: 15 May 2022; Ref: scu.266125

Attorney General v Lewes Corporation: 1911

The local authority was accused of discharging crude sewage into an intermittent partially tidal stream.
Held: Swinfen Eady J said: ‘The question then arises, is the culvert a sewer? The plaintiffs contend it is. The defendants dispute it. The mere pollution of a natural stream or watercourse by turning sewage into it does not convert it into a sewer. On the other hand, if the watercourse has become substantially a sewer, the fact that at certain periods of the year clean water flows into it will not in my opinion prevent it from being a sewer. The question is one of fact and degree in each case. See Falconar v. South Shields Corporation (1895) 11 TLR 223. In that case Lindley L.J. pointed out that the stream had changed its character completely and had become a sewer in the ordinary sense of the word, i.e., a channel for the reception and carrying away of sewage. It was a dirty, filthy sewer.’

Judges:

Swinfen Eady J

Citations:

[1911] 2 Ch 495

Cited by:

Cited – Raglan Housing Association Ltd v Southampton City Council and Southern Water Services Ltd CA 30-Jul-2007
The claimant sought damages in nuisance from the defendants saying that a channel for which they were responsible flooded causing damage. The defendant appealed a finding that the culvert had become a sewer. It had been a natural stream, but had . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Utilities, Local Government

Updated: 14 May 2022; Ref: scu.260139

Bradford Corporation v Myers: HL 1916

The 1893 Act was criticised for its complexity. A section gave protection to public authorities for ‘any act done in pursuance, or execution, or intended execution of any Act of Parliament, or of any power duty or authority, or in respect of any alleged neglect or default in the execution of any such Act, duty or authority.’ The Corporation relied on this section when sued by an occupier who had purchased coke from the municipal gasworks. As a result of the negligence of an employee of the corporation the coke was tipped through the shop window of the purchaser in the course of its delivery.
Held: Lord Buckmaster LC said that the Act only applied where: ‘the act is one which is either an act in the direct execution of a statute, or in the discharge of public duty, or the exercise of the public authority.’
Viscount Haldane said speaking of the words of the section: ‘I do not think that they can be properly extended so as to embrace an act which is not done in direct pursuance of the provisions of the statute or in the direct execution of the duty or authority.’

Judges:

Lord Buckmaster LC

Citations:

[1916] 1 AC 242

Statutes:

Public Authorities Protection Act 1893

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – Pountney v Griffiths; Regina v Bracknell Justices, Ex parte Griffiths HL 1976
The applicant was a male nurse at Broadmoor Special Hospital. He was on duty while patients were saying goodbye to visitors. He approached the detained patient telling him to ‘come on’ and allegedly punched him on the shoulder. The patient brought . .
Cited – Seal v Chief Constable of South Wales Police HL 4-Jul-2007
The claimant had sought to bring proceedings against the respondent, but as a mental patient subject to the 1983 Act, had been obliged by the section first to obtain consent. The parties disputed whether the failure was a procedural or substantial . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Litigation Practice, Local Government

Updated: 14 May 2022; Ref: scu.254625

Ayr Harbour Trustees v Oswald: 1883

The appellant trustees could not competently preclude themselves from exercising their powers under the Ayr Harbour Act in respect of certain land acquired by them for the purposes of that statute bearing in mind that their discretionary powers were such as to be capable of exercise whenever and as often as they considered it appropriate to exercise them in the public interest.
A statutory body had no power to alienate lands which it had acquired for a statutory purpose or to grant any right over such land which was inconsistent with its use for statutory purposes.

Citations:

(1883) 8 AC 623

Cited by:

Cited – Kilby v Basildon District Council Admn 26-Jul-2006
Tenants complained that the authority landlord had purported to vary a clause in his secure tenancy agreement which gave certain management rights to tenants.
Held: The powers to let on secure tenancies were governed by statute. The clause . .
Explained – Stourcliffe Estates Co Ltd v Bournemouth Corporation 1910
. .
Cited – Blake v Hendon Corporation CA 1962
Devlin LJ said: ‘For example, a man selling a part of his land might object to a refreshment pavilion on his boundary. Provided that the erection of a refreshment pavilion on that spot was not essential to the use of the land as a pleasure ground, . .
Cited – Smoke Club Ltd, Regina (on The Application of) v Network Rail Infrastructure Ltd Admn 29-Oct-2013
The claimant had been refused leave to bring judicial review. It then renewed its application before finally wthdrawing it. The court now considered liability for costs.
Held: ‘There are particular reasons for the particular rules governing . .
Cited – Newhaven Port and Properties Ltd, Regina (on The Application of) v East Sussex County Council and Another SC 25-Feb-2015
The court was asked: ‘whether East Sussex County Council . . was wrong in law to decide to register an area . . known as West Beach at Newhaven . . as a village green pursuant to the provisions of the Commons Act 2006. The points of principle raised . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Local Government, Scotland

Updated: 14 May 2022; Ref: scu.244728

C v London Borough of Lewisham: CA 4 Jul 2003

The applicant lost her flat and had been refused emergency housing for herself and her child. She had a very troubled history with severe emotional trauma, and was disorganised. He application was refused on the ground of her having become intentionally homeless. The authority refused to extend her time to request a review. She now appealed a similar refusal of the court.
Held: In so far as the local housing authority was exercising an extra-statutory discretion, it was fully entitled to take it no further. The authority gave full reasons why the department was not prepared to accede to the request. This decision is even further beyond challenge by judicial review than a decision taken under s. 202(3).

Judges:

Lord Justice Ward, Lord Justice Waller And Lord Justice Dyson

Citations:

[2003] EWCA Civ 927, Times 12-Aug-2003, Gazette 11-Sep-2003

Links:

Bailii

Statutes:

Housing Act 1996 202 204

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

Cited – Regina v London Borough of Tower Hamlets, ex parte Nadia Saber QBD 1991
It is not uncommon, after a decision has been reached that an applicant for housing under Part III of the Act became intentionally homeless, for a request to be made to reconsider the decision in the light of additional material or argument. Such a . .
Cited – Regina v Brighton and Hove Council ex parte Nacion (2) CA 1-Feb-1999
The applicant sought review of a decision not to offer him temporary accomodation pending an appeal following a review of a refusal to offer him emergency accomodation. He had become homeless as a result of imprisonment.
Held: The section gave . .
Cited – Regina v Tower Hamlets London Borough Council, ex parte Chetnik Developments Limited HL 1988
The House was asked whether a rating authority could refuse to repay rates which had been paid by mistake.
Held: ‘Parliament must have intended the rating authorities to act in the same high principled way expected by the court of its own . .
Cited – Regina v Panel on Takeovers and Mergers ex parte Guinness Plc CA 1989
The court asked about the standard of decision making at which a court could intervene: ‘Irrationality, at least in the sense of failing to take account of relevant factors or taking account of irrelevant factors, is a difficult concept in the . .
Cited – Tesco Stores Ltd v Secretary of State for the Environment and Others HL 11-May-1995
Three companies had applied for permission to build retail food superstores in Witney. The Inspector had recommended Tesco’s proposal, but the respondent rejected it. Tesco’s had offered to provide by way of a section 106 agreement full funding for . .
Cited – Regina v Lord Mayor and Citizens of City of Westminster ex parte Ellioua CA 2-Jul-1998
The applicant sought to be rehoused. On review it was decided that she was intentionally homeless. She asked the authority to review that decision (a re-review). The authority said it had no power so to do. She had a right to appeal on a point of . .
Cited – Demetri v Westminster City Council CA 12-Nov-1999
A right of appeal against a Housing authority’s decision lay only against the original decision itself after a review, and the notice of appeal was to be given with 21 days of the original review. A council in its discretion can decide to reconsider . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Housing, Local Government

Updated: 14 May 2022; Ref: scu.184258

Regina v Lambeth London Borough Council ex parte Eckpo-Wedderman: 1998

The court considered the matters to be taken into account by a local authority when setting its housing policy: ‘I do not believe that a local housing authority, considering (as it is right that it should) whether to meet a particular and perhaps unusual need by acquiring property on the open market, is obliged to disregard the cost of doing so.’

Judges:

Laws J

Citations:

[1998] 31 HLR 498

Cited by:

Cited – Calgin, Regina (on the Application of) v London Borough of Enfield Admn 29-Jul-2005
The claimant complained that having applied for housing in the borough they had in fact housed him outside the borough.
Held: The authority had a duty to house the applicant so far it was reasonably practicable within its borders. The policy . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Housing, Local Government

Updated: 14 May 2022; Ref: scu.234544

Regina v Broxtowe Borough Council ex parte Bradford: CA 2000

A tennis coach wanted employment with the borough council as a coach. It made inquiries of another council and found that he had been suspected of improper conduct towards young girls. It not only refused him a job but imposed a ban upon him teaching in their public tennis courts interfering with the existing and further jobs that he had obtained providing coaching on those courts to private individuals.
Held: The Court stated the principles: ‘Judicial Review is not concerned with technicalities in relation to the conduct of public bodies, it is concerned with ensuring justice. However, where an applicant for judicial review is denied a right to be heard which should have been granted to him, the courts should exercise considerable caution before concluding that the absence of the hearing has not resulted in any injustice. The correct approach in this situation was clearly indicated by Bingham LJ, as he then was, in R v The Chief Constable of the Thames Valley Police ex parte Cotton [1990] IRLR 344. At p352, paragraph 60, Bingham LJ said: ”While cases may no doubt arise in which it can properly be held that denying the subject of a decision an adequate opportunity to put his case is not in all the circumstances unfair, I would expect these cases to be of great rarity. There are a number of reasons for this: ‘1. Unless the subject of the decision has had an opportunity to put his case it may not be easy to know what case he could or would have put if he had had the chance. ‘2. As memorably pointed out by Megarry J in John v Rees [1970] Ch 345 at p402, experience is by no means always that which happens. It is generally desirable that decision-makers should be reasonably receptive to argument, and it would therefore be unfortunate if the complainant’s position became weaker as the decision-maker’s mind became more closed. In considering whether the complainant’s representations would have made any difference to the outcome the court may unconsciously stray from its proper province of reviewing the propriety of the decision-making process into the forbidden territory of evaluating the substantial merits of a decision. This is a field in which appearances are generally thought to matter. Where a decision-maker is under a duty to act fairly the subject of the decision may properly be said to have a right to be heard, and rights are not to be lightly denied. The decision in that case was referred to the learned judge. It is apparent from his judgment that he had the guidance indicated in that paragraph of Bingham LJ’s judgment in mind when he gave his judgment. I recognise that, in relation to the matters to which I will turn, the council had a difficult task. They were under a heavy responsibility not to expose children in their locality unnecessarily to the risk of molestation. They are required to take all steps which are reasonably open to them to protect children from such conduct. However, they also have a responsibility not to use their position as a local authority to interfere with an individual’s right to earn his living without proper cause and without extending to the individual concerned the basic requirements of fairness. This case involved the responsibilities of the local authority in relation to the terms on which they allow their property to be used, that property being the tennis club. Ordinarily, a property owner is entitled to decide for entirely commercial or personal reasons what he or she is to permit to take place on that property. A local authority is in a different position from a normal landowner since, in determining what use is to be made of its property, it is exercising a statutory discretion. In the exercise of that statutory discretion, it must act in accordance with proper administrative standards. Those standards include an obligation to be reasonable and fair in the actions which the council takes which could have adverse consequence on third parties.’

Judges:

Lord Woolf

Citations:

[2000] IRLR 329

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – Montgomery, Regina (on the Application of) v Hertfordshire County Council Admn 2-Sep-2005
The applicant, a former senior employee sought review of an order banning her from all the respondent’s premises. She had left the employment after a settlement, but the order would make it impossible to continue the work she had later taken up.
Cited – Shoesmith, Regina (on The Application of) v OFSTED and Others CA 27-May-2011
The claimant appealed against dismissal of her claim. She had been head of Child Services at Haringey. After the notorious violent death of Baby P, the Secretary of State called for an inquiry under the Act. He then removed her as director. She . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Employment, Local Government

Updated: 13 May 2022; Ref: scu.230901

Roberts v Hopwood: HL 1925

The district auditor for Poplar Council had surcharged council members for making payments of a minimum wage of andpound;4 a week to their lowest grade of workers. This was notwithstanding that the cost of living had fallen during the year from 176% to 82% above its pre-First World War level. The council was motivated by the belief that it ought to act as a model employer towards its employees. The sum was fixed not by reference to any of the factors which go to determine a scale of wages, but by reference to some other principle altogether.
Held: The surcharge was upheld. The councillors had not fixed on the sum as wages at all and had acted unreasonably. In fixing andpound;4 they had fixed it by reference to a matter which they ought not to have taken into account and to the exclusion of those elements which they ought to have taken into consideration in fixing a sum which could fairly be called a wage.
Lord Atkinson said: ‘The council would . . fail in their duty if, in administering funds which did not belong to their members alone, they put aside all these aids to the ascertainment of what was just and reasonable remuneration to give for the services rendered to them, and allowed themselves to be guided in preference by some eccentric principles of socialistic philanthropy, or by a feminist ambition to secure equality of the sexes in the matter of wages in the world of labour.’
and ‘A body charged with the administration for definite purposes of funds contributed in whole or in part by persons other than the members of that body, owes . . a duty to those latter persons to conduct that administration in a fairly businesslike manner with reasonable care, skill and caution, and a due and alert regard to the interests of those contributors who are not members of the body. Towards these latter persons the body stands somewhat in the position of trustees or managers of the property of others.’
Acts done ‘in flagrant violation’ of the duty should be held to have been done ‘contrary to law’ within the meaning of the governing statute.
Lord Sumner stated that if it was found that the councillors’ ‘evil minds had missed their mark, and the expenditure itself was right, then the expenditure itself would not be contrary to law’. He went on to say that for administrative bodies to act in good faith, they must put ‘their minds to the comprehension and their wills to the discharge of their duty.’
Lord Wrenbury said: ‘A person in whom is vested a discretion must exercise his discretion upon reasonable grounds. A discretion does not empower a man to do what he likes merely because he is minded to do so – he must in the exercise of his discretion do not what he likes but what he ought. In other words, he must, by use of his reason, ascertain and follow the course which reason directs.’

Judges:

Lord Atkinson, Lord Sumner, Lord Wrenbury

Citations:

[1925] AC 578, [1925] All ER 24

Cited by:

Cited – Associated Provincial Picture Houses Ltd v Wednesbury Corporation CA 10-Nov-1947
Administrative Discretion to be Used Reasonably
The applicant challenged the manner of decision making as to the conditions which had been attached to its licence to open the cinema on Sundays. It had not been allowed to admit children under 15 years of age. The statute provided no appeal . .
Applied – Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council v Shaw QBD 2000
Two senior and long term employees of the Council proposed voluntary early redundancy. After discussions, their contracts were varied with enhanced pay so that they would also have enhanced pensions and redundancy payments. Such enhancing agreements . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Local Government, Administrative

Updated: 13 May 2022; Ref: scu.224436

Merrill Lynch Capital Services Inc v The Municipality of Piraeus and The Bank of Tokyo; Mitsubishi Bank Ltd and Others v The Municipality of Piraeus: ComC 18 Jun 1997

Loan and swap agreements – Greek local authority – Rules of English private international law – capacity – authority – ratification

Citations:

[1997] 6 Bank LR 241, [1997] CLC 1214

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Banking, Local Government

Updated: 13 May 2022; Ref: scu.220782

The King v Bedwellty Urban District Council, ex parte Price: 1934

Citations:

[1934] 1 KB 333

Cited by:

Cited – Regina (HTV Ltd) v Bristol City Council QBD 14-May-2004
The claimant sought disclosure by the respondent of their accounts, intending to use the material in a television program.
Held: As ratepayers, they were entitled to the information. The respondent was not free to refuse it because it . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Local Government

Updated: 13 May 2022; Ref: scu.198149

Regina v Portsmouth City Council, Ex parte Gregory and Mos: QBD 1990

The local authority had disciplined two of its councillors for alleged breach of the Code for Local Government. The councillors now successfully challenged the proceedings. The administrative Sub-Committee which had made the finding had been acting ultra-vires when it did so.

Judges:

Mann LJ and Brooke J

Citations:

[1990] 2 Admin LR 681

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – Gregory v Portsmouth City Council HL 10-Feb-2000
Disciplinary proceedings had been taken by the local authority against Mr Gregory, a council member, after allegations had been made that he had failed to declare conflicts of interest, and that he had used confidential information to secure a . .
See Also – Gregory v Portsmouth City Council CA 5-Nov-1997
The plaintiff councillor had been disciplined by the defendant for allegations. The findings were later overturned, and he now sought damages alleging malicious prosecution.
Held: The categories of malicious prosecution are closed, and it was . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Local Government, Torts – Other

Updated: 13 May 2022; Ref: scu.192248

Regina v Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council, ex parte Schemet: QBD 1993

The court considered the withdrawal of a policy whereby the local authority paid travelling expenses for the attendance of pupils at denominational schools outside the area.
Held: Relief was granted. The authority should have consulted those affected.

Judges:

Roch J

Citations:

(1993) 91 LGR 425, [1994] ELR 89

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – Regina on Application of Dinev and Others v Westminster City Council Admn 24-Oct-2000
Street artists had operated in Leicester Square for many years without either licenses or being prosecuted. The respondent introduced a scheme to regulate them, and the applicants sought to challenge it by way of judicial review, alleging a failure . .
Cited – Re C (a minor) CA 1994
The question was whether a school which was not that of parental choice could be regarded as suitable or, to put it the other way round, whether free transport had to be provided where a parent had chosen a school which was not the nearest to the . .
Cited – In Re S CA 1995
Parents wanted their children to attend English middle schools in Wales. The Court dealt with the argument that the objective suitability of the nearer school had to be considered by the court on judicial review. Alternatively, it was argued that it . .
Cited – Jones, Regina (on the Application of) v Ceredigion County Council Admn 22-Jun-2004
The parents lawfully chose to send their child to a Welsh language school. The authority refused to provide free transport on the basis that a nearer school was available even though it was not a Welsh language school.
Held: Provided the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Local Government, Judicial Review, Education

Updated: 12 May 2022; Ref: scu.190068

Regina v Tower Hamlets London Borough Council, ex parte Kayne-Levenson: CA 1975

There is a clear public interest in the regulation of street markets.

Judges:

Lawton LJ

Citations:

[1975] QB 431

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – Regina on Application of Dinev and Others v Westminster City Council Admn 24-Oct-2000
Street artists had operated in Leicester Square for many years without either licenses or being prosecuted. The respondent introduced a scheme to regulate them, and the applicants sought to challenge it by way of judicial review, alleging a failure . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Licensing, Local Government

Updated: 12 May 2022; Ref: scu.190067

Page Motors v Epsom Borough Council: CA 9 Jul 1981

The plaintiffs were lessees of land neighbouring that of the Council. Over several years the council’s land had been occupied by gypsies who, it was said had damaged the plaintiff’s business. Though the Council had obtained a possession order in 1975, it had not enforced it for fear that the gypsies would, without alternative sites, cause problems elsewhere. The Council appealed against a finding that it had adopted the nuisance.
Held: The appeal failed. When the defendants had become aware of the damage being caused, to adjoining occupiers, they came under a duty to act, and had correctly been found liable from the date of the possession order. The obligations falling on the defendant as a public body may be wider than would fall on a private body. They were held liable without a finding of negligence.

Citations:

[1981] 80 LGR 337

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

Appeal from – Page Motors Limited v Epsom and Ewell Borough Council QBD 1980
The plaintiff company were tenants of land adjoining land owned by the defendant council. Gypsies came to occupy the defendant’s land over several years and in increasing numbers. The Authority had obtained a possession order but had failed to . .
Cited – Sedleigh-Denfield v O’Callaghan HL 24-Jun-1940
Occupier Responsible for Nuisance in adopting it
A trespasser laid a drain along a ditch on the defendant’s land. Later the defendants came to use the drain themselves. A grate was misplaced by them so that in a heavy rainstorm, it became clogged with leaves, and water flowed over into the . .
Cited – Goldman v Hargrave PC 13-Jun-1966
(Australia) In Western Australia, a red gum tree was struck by lightning and set on fire. The appellant had the tree cut down, but took no reasonable steps by spraying the fire with water to prevent the fire from spreading, believing that it would . .
Cited – Leakey v The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty CA 31-Jul-1979
Natural causes were responsible for soil collapsing onto neighbouring houses in Bridgwater.
Held: An occupier of land owes a general duty of care to a neighbouring occupier in relation to a hazard occurring on his land, whether such hazard is . .

Cited by:

Cited – Lippiatt and Febry v South Gloucestershire County Council CA 31-Mar-1999
The defendant had failed to remove travellers who had encamped on its land and caused nuisances against neighbouring farmers.
Held: The court refused to strike out a claim in nuisance by neighbouring land owners. It was arguable that a land . .
Cited – Cocking and Another v Eacott and Another CA 9-Mar-2016
The defendant appealed against a finding of nuisance by her despite her not occupying the property from which the nuisance (barking) emanated. The occupier, her daughter was present under a license rather than a tenancy. She would not have been . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Local Government, Nuisance

Updated: 12 May 2022; Ref: scu.190053

Attorney-General v Fulham Corporation: 1921

The corporation ran a wash house allowing users to attend and to wash their clothes. It introduced a new scheme under which a user would purchase a wash bag, fill it with clothes and leave it to be washed by corporation employees. This scheme was challenged.
Held: The new scheme fell without the scheme authorised by the 1846 Act and was unlawful. The corporation, a statutory body, was to be restrained from acting outside its powers.

Citations:

[1921] 1 Ch 440, [1921] 90 LJ Ch 281, [1921] 125 LT 14, [1921] 85 JP 213, [1921] 37 TLR 156, [1921] 65 Sol Jo 174, [1921] 19 LGR 441

Statutes:

Baths and Warehouses Act 1846, London Government Act 1899

Local Government

Updated: 12 May 2022; Ref: scu.188783

Westminster City Council v Quereshi: 1961

Citations:

[1991] CLY 461

Cited by:

Not followed – Co-operative Insurance Society Ltd v Hastings Borough Council ChD 23-Jun-1993
The local authority made a CPO in 1981 in respect of a sports ground. The applicants later acquired the land. In 1989 the order was confirmed and in March 1989 a vesting order was made. The authority was unable to afford to complete the purchase. In . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Land, Local Government

Updated: 12 May 2022; Ref: scu.186342

Chapleo v Brunswick Permanent Building Society: 1881

‘persons who deal with corporations or societies that owe their constitution to or have their powered defined or limited by Act of Parliament, or are regulated by deeds of settlement or rules, deriving their effect more or less from Acts of Parliament, are bound to know or to ascertain for themselves the nature of the constitution, and the extent of the powers of the corporation or society with which they deal. The plaintiffs and everyone else who have dealings with a building society are bound to know that such a society has no power of borrowing, except such as is conferred upon it by its rules, and if dealing with such a society they neglect or fail to ascertain whether it has the power of borrowing or whether any limited power it may have has been exceeded, they must take the consequences of their carelessness.’

Citations:

(1881) 6 QBD 696

Cited by:

Cited – Stretch v West Dorset District Council CA 10-Nov-1997
A local authority has no ability to grant an option to renew a lease, even though it has the power to grant a lease and would benefit from the wrongful grant. The land was held for an express statutory purpose and was not ‘corporate land’ within the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Local Government, Company, Financial Services

Updated: 12 May 2022; Ref: scu.184241

Regina v North Riding of Yorkshire County Council: 1989

The constituent councils, not having exercised the power to impose restrictions and conditions in advance, could not decline responsibility for items of expenditure necessarily incurred by the committee. Restrictions or conditions had to be imposed by unanimous agreement between all the councils concerned.

Citations:

[1989] 1 QB 201

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – South Wales Sea Fisheries Committee v National Assembly for Wales Admn 21-Dec-2001
The committee sought a review of the 2001 Order made under the 1966 Act to revise the contributions to be made by participating members of the committee to the costs of its administration. They contended that the only power over its costs was to . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Local Government, Agriculture

Updated: 12 May 2022; Ref: scu.182835

Leeds City Council v Spencer: CA 6 May 1999

The defendant appealed against an order refusing to set aside an enforcement notice served by the council for his failure to destroy rats and mice on his land.
Held: A local authority had a statutory duty to collect waste, and could not therefore serve a notice, requiring a landowner to clear his land of rubbish, and to remove rats and mice which had gathered. That duty was its own, and could not be moved onto others.

Citations:

Times 24-May-1999, [1999] EWCA Civ 1351

Statutes:

Prevention of Damage by Pests Act 1949, Environmental Protection Act 1990

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Local Government, Animals, Environment

Updated: 11 May 2022; Ref: scu.146266

Westdeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale v Islington London Borough Council: CA 30 Dec 1993

A bank paid money to a local authority under an interest rate swap agreement, which was held later to be outside the local authority’s powers.
Held: The local authority was to repay the money paid to it for an ultra vires purpose (a swap transaction) with compound interest. It was repayable under the equitable principle of restitution.

Citations:

Gazette 23-Feb-1994, Independent 05-Jan-1994, Times 30-Dec-1993, [1994] 4 All ER 890, [1994] 1 WLR 938

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

Appeal from – Westdeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale v Islington London Borough Council; Kleinwort Benson Ltd v Sandwell Borough Council ChD 23-Feb-1993
A bank, having made payment under an void interest rate swap agreement to a local authority, was entitled to recover the payments made under the equitable doctrine of restitution. It would be wrong to allow the local authorities to enjoy an unjust . .

Cited by:

Appeal from – Westdeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale v Islington London Borough Council HL 22-May-1996
Simple interest only on rate swap damages
The bank had paid money to the local authority under a contract which turned out to be ultra vires and void. The question was whether, in addition to ordering the repayment of the money to the bank on unjust enrichment principles, the court could . .
Cited – Stretch v West Dorset District Council CA 10-Nov-1997
A local authority has no ability to grant an option to renew a lease, even though it has the power to grant a lease and would benefit from the wrongful grant. The land was held for an express statutory purpose and was not ‘corporate land’ within the . .
Cited – Wilson v Secretary of State for Trade and Industry; Wilson v First County Trust Ltd (No 2) HL 10-Jul-2003
The respondent appealed against a finding that the provision which made a loan agreement completely invalid for lack of compliance with the 1974 Act was itself invalid under the Human Rights Act since it deprived the respondent lender of its . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Local Government, Equity

Updated: 11 May 2022; Ref: scu.90408

Wandsworth London Borough Council v A: CA 20 Jan 2000

A was a parent of a child. The school complained of A’s behaviour when visiting the school, and was refused a licence to enter the premises without being accompanied. The behaviour continued, and an injunction was obtained.
Held: The order was discharged on appeal because it could not be shown that the headmaster had taken steps to obtain the parent’s side of the situation before acting. There is a public interest both in securing a parent’s access and in protecting the school and its teachers. Buxton LJ: ‘It is, however, clear that Miss A, and other parents, had some sort of licence to enter the school, by reason of its being the practice to permit them to do so.’ and the question was that if there was permission to enter the school as a parent, that was relevant to what procedures were immediately adopted before it could be withdrawn.

Judges:

Buxton LJ

Citations:

Times 28-Jan-2000, Gazette 20-Jan-2000, [2000] 1 WLR 1246

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

Cited – Regina v Brent London Boriugh Council, ex parte Assegai 1987
A committee of the Borough resolved to ban Mr Assegai, who had been involved in a fracas and had made offensive remarks to two Councillors, from visiting any of the Borough’s properties. The resolution also purported to remove him from his . .

Cited by:

Cited – Montgomery, Regina (on the Application of) v Hertfordshire County Council Admn 2-Sep-2005
The applicant, a former senior employee sought review of an order banning her from all the respondent’s premises. She had left the employment after a settlement, but the order would make it impossible to continue the work she had later taken up.
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Education, Local Government

Updated: 11 May 2022; Ref: scu.90279

Tidman v Reading Borough Council: QBD 4 Nov 1994

The plaintiff wanted to sell his land. The purchaser wished to know the planning status and prospects for the land. The local authority published a leaflet encouraging those interested to seek guidance from the authority’s planning officers. The plaintiff did so, but the advice received was negligently incorrect.
Held: Thee informal planning advice given by a Local Authority officer, was not given under a duty of care, and the action failed. The rule in Hedley Byrne did not apply to this situation. The court should exercise care before allowing such a responsibility in such a case. An authority acted under a statutory duty to apply planning law, and to act for the general public interests. A duty in negligence could conflict with those public duties. The plaintiff had sought advice only over the telephone and provided very limited information. It could not be thought that by responding to such an enquiry the authority became liable in negligence. If it did, te result would be that they would give no such assistance in future. The council was also enttled to expect that a person to whom such a question was important would seek their own proper advice. A duty of care might posibly arise where the approach was more formal and detailed, and where e matter might have very serious consequences. The present case came nowhere near creating such a duty.

Judges:

Buckley J

Citations:

Times 10-Nov-1994, [1994] 3 PLR 72

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

Cited – Hedley Byrne and Co Ltd v Heller and Partners Ltd HL 28-May-1963
Banker’s Liability for Negligent Reference
The appellants were advertising agents. They were liable themselves for advertising space taken for a client, and had sought a financial reference from the defendant bankers to the client. The reference was negligent, but the bankers denied any . .

Cited by:

Cited – Regina v Lam and Others (T/a ‘Namesakes of Torbay’) and Borough of Torbay CA 30-Jul-1997
The claimant sought damages after the planning authority allowed the first defendant to conduct a manufacturing business in the course of which spraying activities took place which caused them personal injuries and loss of business.
Held: The . .
Cited – Welton, Welton v North Cornwall District Council CA 17-Jul-1996
The defendant authority appealed a finding that it was liable in negligence from the conduct of one of its environmental health officers. The plaintiff had set out to refurbish and open a restaurant. He said the officer gave him a list of things he . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Professional Negligence, Local Government

Updated: 11 May 2022; Ref: scu.89898

Regina v Education Committee of Blackpool Borough Council ex parte Taylor: 1999

The court emphasised that a party considering challenging by way of a judicial review a local government decision should not first await the outcome of a reference to the Local Government Ombudsman, since he has no power to set aside the decision.

Citations:

[1999] ELR 237

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – Stojak, Regina (on The Application of) v Sheffield City Council Admn 22-Dec-2009
The deceased had been detained as a mental patient and supported after her release, by her family financially. Her representatives now said that the respondent had failed in its obligation to provide support for no charge. The authority said that . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Judicial Review, Education, Local Government

Updated: 11 May 2022; Ref: scu.384471

Regina v Hackney London Borough Council Ex Parte Adebiri; Regina v Merton London Borough Council Ex Parte Inparaja; Regina v Same Ex Parte Parupathpilli Etc: QBD 5 Nov 1997

A Local Authority may sue for council tax even though it is entirely aware that the council tax payer is without either assets or income because of his position as an asylum seeker.

Citations:

Times 05-Nov-1997

Statutes:

Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations 1992 613

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Local Government

Updated: 11 May 2022; Ref: scu.86790

Regina v Powys County Council, Ex Parte Hambidge (No 2): CA 16 Mar 2000

Where a local authority raised the care charges for facilities and services provided to disabled people charging different rates according to the benefits received, and where some benefits were received according to the level of disability, that differentiation did not amount to disability discrimination. The differences arose form the different levels of benefits paid to those asking for these services.

Citations:

Times 16-Mar-2000

Statutes:

Disability Discrimination Act 1995 20, National Health Service Community Care Act 1990

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

Appeal from – Regina v Powys County Council, ex parte Jenny Diane Hambidge Admn 28-Apr-1999
. .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Health, Benefits, Local Government, Discrimination

Updated: 11 May 2022; Ref: scu.85450

Regina v Sheffield City Council, Ex Parte Hague and Another: CA 20 Aug 1999

When a local authority hears an appeal against the refusal to offer a place for a child at a secondary school, the committee may hear submissions as to the possible illegality of the admissions policy of the school. It need not assume that a policy was lawful until and unless set aside. The committee is to apply independent scrutiny to the issues.

Citations:

Times 20-Aug-1999

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Education, Local Government

Updated: 11 May 2022; Ref: scu.85554

Regina v Braintree District Council, ex parte Malcolm William Halls: CA 1 Mar 2000

When selling a house to its tenant under the right to buy legislation, the council had imposed a restrictive covenant preventing the new owner developing the land by further building. The purchaser later approached the council for its release so as to allow further building. He had obtained planning permission for the proposed development. When the council refused, the surviving purchaser sought judicial review of that refusal.
Held: The purchaser’s appeal succeeded. The council had confirmed that the property had been sold at its full market value, without any adjustment to reflect any possible development value, but then adjusted with the appropiate discount. The council now said that it had imposed the covenant in order to retain to itself any development value. It is established law that a council may act under any Act only for purposes allowed by that enabling Act. Despite its assertion, the council had not imposed the covenant with a view to assist in making the properties more affordable generally. The Act set out the elements to be considered in setting the valuation. The purpose of reserving any development value to itself was not one permitted by the Act under which it had been sold. The purpose of the Act was to permit former tenants to enjoy the full range of benefits of land ownership as were enjoyed by other land owners. What was reasonable was what would be reasonable to both parties, not just one. The council might reserve rights which properly affected its remaining estate, for example in the control of noise or other nuisance, but this was not such a purpose. The restrictive covenant was void and the council could not demand any payment for its removal.
Laws LJ considered the principle in Padfield: ‘The rule is not that the exercise of the power is only to be condemned if it is incapable of promoting the Act’s policy, rather the question always is: what was the decision-maker’s purpose in the instant case and was it calculated to promote the policy of the Act?’

Judges:

Laws LJ, Jonathan Parker LK, Evans LJ

Citations:

Times 15-Mar-2000, (2000) 32 HLR 770

Statutes:

Housing Act 1985 127(2) Sch6 para 5

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

Appeal from – Regina v Braintree District Council ex parte Halls Admn 2-Jul-1999
Where a local authority had sold a property to a tenant, and the tenant later came back to request the release from one of the covenants given on the sale, the council was free to charge an appropriate sum for that release. It was not a covenant . .
Applied – Padfield v Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food HL 14-Feb-1968
Exercise of Ministerial Discretion
The Minister had power to direct an investigation in respect of any complaint as to the operation of any marketing scheme for agricultural produce. Milk producers complained about the price paid by the milk marketing board for their milk when . .

Cited by:

Appealed to – Regina v Braintree District Council ex parte Halls Admn 2-Jul-1999
Where a local authority had sold a property to a tenant, and the tenant later came back to request the release from one of the covenants given on the sale, the council was free to charge an appropriate sum for that release. It was not a covenant . .
Cited – Cala Homes (South) Ltd v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and Another Admn 7-Feb-2011
The claimant sought judicial review of a statement and letter by the respondent making a material consideration for planning authorities the intended revocation by the Respondent of Regional Spatial Strategies. The effect would be to allow the . .
Cited – Cala Homes (South) Ltd, Regina (on The Application of) v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and Another CA 27-May-2011
The respondent had circularised local authorities to say that when assessing future local housing needs a proper material consideration was the proposed Localism Bill which would lead to the replacement of ‘Regional Spatial Strategies’ on which such . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Local Government, Housing, Land

Updated: 11 May 2022; Ref: scu.85141

Regina v Greenwich London Borough Council, Ex Parte Glen International Ltd and Another: CA 29 Mar 2000

The council had issued notices requiring renovation works. The property owner applied for grants to cover such works, but the application was refused on the basis that no estimate accompanied the application. It was held that the grants were intended to be mandatory. The council had discretion to accept applications without this information, and in this case could not refuse the grant.

Citations:

Times 29-Mar-2000, Gazette 28-Apr-2000

Statutes:

Housing Act 1985 189, 190, Local Government and Housing Act 1989 113

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Local Government, Housing

Updated: 11 May 2022; Ref: scu.85289

Regina v Hillingdon London Borough Council, ex parte London Regional Transport: CA 31 Aug 1999

Once a local authority had granted permission for the erection of bus shelters, it was not open to that authority who found a commercially better prospect later to revoke those licences to re-grant them elsewhere. The general powers in the later Act did not allow the authority to displace the agreements once in place.

Citations:

Times 31-Aug-1999

Statutes:

Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1953 4, London Transport Passenger Act 1934 104

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Local Government

Updated: 11 May 2022; Ref: scu.85306

Plymouth City Council v C and Another: CA 21 Mar 2000

Where a child coming into care had had connection with two local authorities beforehand, the primary statutory responsibility for care would be determined by assessing which was the authority with a connection to the child immediately before the period to be disregarded under the Act for any temporary placement. The court reaffirmed the simple test in Northamptonshire ‘should be sufficient to determine all but the most exceptional cases’. It did not give the judge some sort of discretionary exit from the plain application of the mechanism contained in sections 31 and 105′. (Swinton Thomas LJ) ‘It is clear, as my lord has said in his judgment, that what was intended in that passage was to leave the door open for circumstances or facts which might arise, which could properly, in the context of that decision, be regarded as exceptional. As at present, I do not find it possible myself to envisage facts which would be exceptional, although I entirely accept that it could be that such facts could arise and that it would be right for the court to leave that possibility open.’

Judges:

Thorpe LJ, Swinton Thomas LJ

Citations:

Times 21-Mar-2000, Gazette 14-Apr-2000, [2000] 1 FLR 875

Statutes:

Children Act 1989 31(1) 105(6)

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

Cited – Northamptonshire County Council v Islington London Borough Council CA 21-Jul-1999
When two local authorities were competing not to be responsible for the costs of a child committed to care, and the child had proper connections with both areas, the issue was to be decided by asking first whether the child had in fact any ‘ordinary . .

Cited by:

Cited – H (Child), Re (Care Order: Appropriate Local Authority) CA 18-Nov-2003
The court had to decide to which of two local authorities, responsibility for supervising a care order should be assigned. The child had moved to live with his grandparents.
Held: The judge had been correct to find that family circumstances . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Children, Local Government

Updated: 11 May 2022; Ref: scu.84780

Newbold and Another v Leicester City Council: CA 20 Aug 1999

An authority which had made an agreement which gave benefits to its employees in return for a reduction in their earnings was bound by that agreement even if it later proved more expensive than had been expected, and very generous. The scheme was not ultra vires. It was not a voluntary payment, but one under which employees had surrendered benefits.

Citations:

Times 20-Aug-1999, Gazette 11-Aug-1999

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

Distinguished – Allsop v North Tyneside Metropolitan Borough Council CA 1991
The district auditor declared that payments made by the Council under an ‘enhanced voluntary severance scheme’, established by it in connection with its policy of not making employees compulsorily redundant, were unlawful. The payments were . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Local Government, Employment

Updated: 11 May 2022; Ref: scu.84270

Lambert v West Devon Borough Council: QBD 19 Mar 1997

A Local Authority officer granting permissions apparently within own powers binds the authority, and the Local Authority was liable in negligence for an error of a building control officer giving planning advice.

Citations:

Times 27-Mar-1997, Gazette 19-Mar-1997

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Negligence, Local Government

Updated: 10 May 2022; Ref: scu.82905

Jones v Waveney District Council: CA 17 Dec 1999

Where a local authority, having paid housing benefit in excess to a landlord, sought to recover that excess from him, it could not do so otherwise than in accordance with the regulations which provided for this. It was not open to the authority to deduct any overpayment from later payments, and if it did so, the landlord had the standing to reclaim the deducted amounts as a debt. Such a claim was not subject only to judicial review of the authority’s actions as part of public law.

Citations:

Times 22-Dec-1999, Gazette 17-Dec-1999

Statutes:

Housing Benefit (General) Regulations 1987 (1987 No 1971)

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Housing, Benefits, Landlord and Tenant, Local Government

Updated: 10 May 2022; Ref: scu.82620

Khan v Islington London Borough Council: CA 6 Jul 1999

Where a local authority came to be obliged to pay compensation for home loss to a tenant, there was nothing usually to prevent the authority setting off against that sum any rent arrears. The two balances arose out of the same relationship, that of landlord and tenant. This may not always apply, the answer may vary according to the circumstances.

Citations:

Times 06-Jul-1999

Statutes:

Land Compensation Act 1973

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Local Government

Updated: 10 May 2022; Ref: scu.82762

In Re R (A Child) (Care Proceedings: Disclosure): CA 18 Jul 2000

A guardian ad litem, representing one child, was entitled to see a report, prepared by the child protection committee of the local authority, which related to the death of the child’s sibling. Such a report constituted a report prepared by the authority whilst exercising a statutory function assigned to it. No question of policy could limit the obligation to disclose such a report. The child had an overwhelming interest on the report. Questions about the disclosure of particularly sensitive material were issues of practice not principle. Section 42 should be given its literal meaning.

Citations:

Times 18-Jul-2000, Gazette 27-Jul-2000, [2000] 3 FCR 721

Statutes:

Local Authorities Social Services Act 1970, Children Act 1989 42(1)(b)

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Applied – In re J (a Child) (Care Proceedings: Disclosure) FD 9-May-2003
A report had been prepared by the local authority into the way in which it had handled the proceedings. The guardian sought to inspect the report and the authority resisted, claiming public interest immunity.
Held: The report had been prepared . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Children, Local Government

Updated: 10 May 2022; Ref: scu.82132

Grogan v Greenwich London Borough Council: CA 2 Mar 2000

A youth had left care, and been given a secure tenancy. He was convicted of an offence, including one for having stolen goods at the flat. He was sentenced to six months detention, and the council applied for possession. On release he asked for the possession to be suspended, but the order was made. On appeal the order was suspended. The court had to balance the need to protect society by allowing a youth an opportunity to establish a life against the needs of the neighbourhood.

Citations:

Gazette 02-Mar-2000, Times 28-Mar-2000

Statutes:

Housing Act 1985 85

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Housing, Local Government

Updated: 10 May 2022; Ref: scu.81054

Ex Parte Nacion: CA 17 Mar 1999

It was appropriate to apply to judicially review a failure by a local authority to consider exercising its discretion to support a housing applicant pending an appeal, but not where the authority considered but rejected the opportunity to exercise its discretion.

Citations:

Gazette 17-Mar-1999

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Judicial Review, Housing, Local Government

Updated: 10 May 2022; Ref: scu.80418

Agodzo v Bristol City Council: CA 9 Jun 1999

A County Court can hear a claim for repayment of excess charges made by a local authority for sewer maintenance. Although the claim was in its nature based upon unjust enrichment, the statute under which the charges were made gave the County Court jurisdiction.

Citations:

Times 09-Jun-1999

Statutes:

Building Act 1984 107(4)

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Local Government

Updated: 10 May 2022; Ref: scu.77671

Kent County Council v Batchelor: 1979

Citations:

[1979] 1 WLR 213

Cited by:

Cited – City of London Corporation v Bovis Construction Ltd CA 18-Apr-1988
An injunction had been granted to restrain Bovis from causing a noise nuisance outside certain hours specified in a notice served by the council under the 1974 Act which created a criminal offence ‘without reasonable excuse’ to contravene the . .
Cited – Birmingham City Council v Shafi and Another CA 30-Oct-2008
The Council appealed a finding that the court did not have jurisdiction to obtain without notice injunctions to control the behaviour of youths said to be creating a disturbance, including restricting their rights to enter certain parts of the city . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Local Government

Updated: 10 May 2022; Ref: scu.277379

Re M (Care: Challenging Decisions by Local Authority): FD 2001

Local authorities involved in care proceedings will infringe the rights of parents and other individual parties to them under both Article 6 and Article 8 of the Convention unless they conduct themselves with integrity, transparency and inclusiveness so as to satisfy the family’s rights, necessarily to be construed in a wide sense, to a fair hearing and to respect for their private and family life.
Held: The mother’s appeal against the care order was dismissed.

Judges:

Holman J

Citations:

[2001] 2 FLR 1300

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – NJ v Essex County Council and Another; In re J (Care: Assessment: Fair Trial); Re J (a child) (care proceedings: fair trial) CA 11-May-2006
The family complained that the local authority had, in assessing the need for a care order, failed to follow the guideliens set down in In Re L, leading to an infringement of their human rights.
Held: Neither in the lower court nor here had . .
Cited – Cheshire County Council and others v DS (Father) and others CA 15-Mar-2007
The court granted an appeal in care proceedings, but examined the relationship between the court and local authorities. There had been a late change in the proposed care plan and an application by grandparents to be made party. Some in the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Children, Local Government, Human Rights

Updated: 10 May 2022; Ref: scu.242871

Dunlop v Woolahara Municipal Council: PC 1981

A council had no liabiity in a private action for damages for a breach of statutory duty in its handling of a planning application. While doubting that it was so, Lord Diplock left open the question whether an individual injuriously affected by either the refusal of planning permission on the part of a planning authority or by the grant of planning permission to neighbouring property owners had a right of action for damages against the planning authority.

Judges:

Lord Diplock

Citations:

[1981] 1 All ER 1202

Jurisdiction:

Australia

Cited by:

Cited – Regina v Lam and Others (T/a ‘Namesakes of Torbay’) and Borough of Torbay CA 30-Jul-1997
The claimant sought damages after the planning authority allowed the first defendant to conduct a manufacturing business in the course of which spraying activities took place which caused them personal injuries and loss of business.
Held: The . .
Cited – Kane v New Forest District Council CA 13-Jun-2001
A pedestrian walked from a footpath into the road and was hit by a car. She sought damages from the highway authority, saying that they had allowed vegetation to grow to an extent to make it impossible to be seen. As a second tier appeal, the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Negligence, Local Government

Updated: 09 May 2022; Ref: scu.225319

Ormston v Horsham Rural District Council: 1966

Lord Denning said: ‘An Enforcement notice is not to be regarded with the strict eye of a conveyancer. An inaccuracy or mis-description does not make it a nullity . . so long as an Enforcement notice tells a man fairly what he has done wrong and what he is required to do to put it right, then the notice is good.’

Judges:

Lord Denning

Citations:

1966 LGR 452

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – BT Fleet Ltd v McKenna Admn 17-Mar-2005
The company appealed a notice requiring them to avoid th eneed for its employees to carry out manual handling operations.
Held: The notice was inadequate, and the magistrates had been wrong to try to improve it by adding to it. The inspector . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Local Government, Planning

Updated: 09 May 2022; Ref: scu.224055

Graham v Teesdale and Another: 1981

The case concerned the audit of local authority accounts by a district auditor. The court considered the meaning of ‘wilful misconduct’ within the section.
Held: Wilful misconduct means ‘deliberately doing something which is wrong knowing it to be wrong or with reckless indifference as to whether it is wrong or not’.

Judges:

Webster J

Citations:

[1981] 81 LGR 117

Statutes:

Local Government Act 1972 161

Cited by:

Cited – Attorney General’s Reference (No 3 of 2003) CACD 7-Apr-2004
Police Officers had been acquitted of misconduct in public office. They had stood by in a police station custody suite as a prisoner lay on the floor and died.
Held: The trial took place before R -v- G which had overruled Caldwell. The . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Local Government

Updated: 09 May 2022; Ref: scu.196542

Regina v Waltham Forest, Ex parte Vale: 11 Feb 1985

The court had to decide what was the ordinary reference under the 1948 of an adult without capacity. V had been in residential care in Ireland for over 20 years, but having left there had been with her mother for two weeks. The parties argued the case using the test in Shah.
Held: The court adopted a two-part approach suggested by counsel, but on either approach he considered that her residence with her parents could be treated as sufficiently settled to satisfy the Shah test.

Judges:

Taylor J

Citations:

Unreported, 11 February 1985

Statutes:

National Assistance Act 1948

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

Applied – Regina v Barnet London Borough Council, Ex parte Shah HL 16-Dec-1982
The five applicants had lived in the UK for at least three years while attending school or college. All five were subject to immigration control, four had entered as students with limited leave to remain for the duration of their studies, and the . .
Cited – In re P (GE) (An infant) CA 1965
A stateless child was taken by his father away from the mother in England to Israel.
Held: The wardship jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery extended to any child ‘ordinarily resident’ in this country. An infant of British nationality whether . .

Cited by:

Cited – Cornwall Council, Regina (on The Application of) v Secretary of State for Health and Somerset County Council SC 8-Jul-2015
PH had severe physical and learning disabilities and was without speech, lacking capacity to decide for himself where to live. Since the age of four he received accommodation and support at public expense. Until his majority in December 2004, he was . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Local Government

Updated: 09 May 2022; Ref: scu.588973

Regina v Suffolk County Council Ex Parte Steed and Steed: Admn 1995

Judicial review was sought of the Council’s decision to refuse to register a park as a Town or Village Green.
Held: Carnwath J looked at the procedure to be followed by a council receiving an application for registration of commons right: ‘it is accepted that if the matter has to be reconsidered by the Council on its merits, then some form of oral hearing will in practice be necessary. Although there is no provision for such a procedure in the regulations, I understand that authorities do sometimes organise non-statutory hearings, where the written submissions disclose significant conflicts of evidence. This is appropriate.’ and ‘Some oral procedure seems essential if a fair view is to be reached where conflicting recollections need to be reconciled, even if the absence of statutory powers makes it a less than ideal procedure’. As to the effect of section 19(2): ‘whatever rights may have been thought to exist by virtue of actions or events before 1970, they ceased to have effect. Thereafter the land was deemed not to be a ‘town or village green’, within any of the three parts of the definition’. User ‘as of right’ meant that the people indulging in sports and pastimes on the land must have believed that they were exercising a right claimed by the inhabitants of a particular locality. The court in exercise of its jurisdiction under Section 14 is not confined to remedying errors of law, but may consider the overall merits of the amendment.
The users had to emanate from a locality by which was meant more than a place or geographical area: ‘In the present statutory context, I do not think that a piece of land used only by the inhabitants of two or three streets would naturally be regarded as a ‘town or village green’. The word ‘locality’ in the definition of village green should be interpreted with regard to its context.
Such an approach is also consistent with that of Kekewich J. in Edwards v. Jenkins, where the issue was whether a green could exist for the benefit of three parishes. He held that it could not. He referred to the authorities which showed that the use must be that of the inhabitants of a ‘district’, and continued:
‘I take it that the judges have used the word ‘district’ as meaning some division of the county defined and known to the law, as a parish is; and that I should be extending their meaning if I were to say that a custom of this kind could be claimed as regards several parishes.
Although the actual decision has been doubted (see New Windsor case,) the words underlined fairly reflect the earlier cases there cited, and indeed the concept of a ‘local law’ as explained in Hammerton v. Honey. The word ‘locality’ in the Act seems intended to bear the same connotation as the word ‘district’ as used in such cases’.

Judges:

Carnwath J

Citations:

(1995) 70 P and CR 487

Statutes:

Commons Registration Act 1965 1(2)(a) 14 22

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

Cited – Secretary of State for Education and Science v Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council HL 21-Oct-1976
An authority investigating an application for registration of rights of common over land has an implied duty to ‘take reasonable steps to acquaint (itself) with the relevant information.’ A mere factual mistake has become a ground of judicial . .

Cited by:

Appeal from – Regina v Suffolk County Council Ex Parte Steed and Another CA 2-Aug-1996
Customary rights over land were not defeated by failure to register as common. ‘As of right’ meant that the right must be exercised in the belief that it is a right enjoyed by the inhabitants of the village to the exclusion of all other people. ‘it . .
Cited – Oxfordshire County Council v Oxford City Council, Catherine Mary Robinson ChD 22-Jan-2004
Land had been registered in part as a common. The council appealed.
Held: The rights pre-existing the Act had not been lost. The presumption against retrospectively disapplying vested rights applied, and the application had properly been made. . .
Preferred – Regina v Norfolk County Council ex parte Perry Admn 19-Dec-1996
The period of twenty years required to establish a common under the Act was the period up to the date of the application. . .
Cited – Oxfordshire County Council v Oxford City Council and Another CA 24-Feb-2004
Application was made to register the ‘trap grounds’ as a village green.
Held: Carnwath LJ: ‘The 1965 Act created no new legal status, and no new rights or liabilities other than those resulting from the proper interpretation of section 10. . .
Cited – Oxfordshire County Council v Oxford City Council and others HL 24-May-2006
Application had been made to register as a town or village green an area of land which was largely a boggy marsh. The local authority resisted the application wanting to use the land instead for housing. It then rejected advice it received from a . .
Cited – Betterment Properties (Weymouth) Ltd v Dorset County Council ChD 2-Mar-2007
The company sought an order removing some 46 acres of land from designation as a village green. The claimant sought the amendment of the register. The parties disputed what evidence beyond that available to the committee making the decision should . .
Cited – Leeds Group Plc v Leeds City Council ChD 21-Apr-2010
Application had been made to the defendant to register as a common land belonging in part to the claimant and in part to the defendant. The claimant objected to the registration. The defendant did not. . .
Cited – Paddico (267) Ltd v Kirklees Metropolitan Council and Others ChD 23-Jun-2011
The company sought the rectification of the register of village greens to remove an entry relating to its land, saying that the Council had not properly considered the need properly to identify the locality which was said to have enjoyed the rights . .
Cited – Lancashire County Council, Regina (on The Application of) v SSEFRA and Another SC 11-Dec-2019
‘The principal issue in these two appeals relates to the circumstances in which the concept of ‘statutory incompatibility’ will defeat an application to register land as a town or village green where the land is held by a public authority for . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Land, Local Government

Updated: 09 May 2022; Ref: scu.192096

Mixnams Properties Ltd v Chertsey Urban District Council: HL 1965

The local authority was not entitled under the 1960 Act to lay down conditions relating to the licensee’s powers of letting or licensing caravan spaces to its customers. The freedom to contract is a fundamental right, and that if Parliament intends to empower a third party to make conditions which regulate the terms of contracts to be made between others then, even where there is an appeal to a court of law against such conditions, it must do so in clear terms. Viscount Dilhorne: ‘In the present case there appears to me to be a fundamental difference between prescribing what must or must not be done on a site and restricting the site owner’s ordinary freedom to contract with his licensees on matters which do not relate to the manner of use of the site. Conditions can make the site owner responsible for the proper use of the site and it is then for him to make such contracts with his licensees as the general law permits. I can find nothing in the Act of 1960 suggesting any intention to authorise local authorities to go beyond laying down conditions relating to the use of sites, and in my opinion the general words in section 5 cannot be read as entitling them to do so.’

Judges:

Lord Upjohn, Viscount Dilhorne

Citations:

[1965] AC 735

Statutes:

Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – Stewart v Perth and Kinross Council HL 1-Apr-2004
The claimant challenged refusal of a licence to sell second hand cars, saying that the licensing requirements imposed were outwith the Act under which they had been made. The licensing scheme imposed additional requirements.
Held: Though a . .
Cited – Aberdeen City and Shire Strategic Development Planning Authority v Elsick Development Company Limited SC 25-Oct-2017
The court was asked whether, anticipating substantial growth, a local authority had power to attach to permissions for development conditions intended to recover sums for pooled fund for infrastructure development.
Held: The appeal failed. . .
Cited – Wright, Regina (on The Application of Wright) v Resilient Energy Severndale Ltd and Another SC 20-Nov-2019
W challenged the grant of planning permission for the change of use of agricultural land to allow erection of a wind turbine, saying that the authority had taken into account a promise by the land owner to run the scheme as a community development . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Contract, Local Government, Licensing

Updated: 09 May 2022; Ref: scu.195471

Pound v Ashford Borough Council: ChD 16 May 2003

The claimant bought a house. The fact that it was a listed building was not recorded by the registers. As a consequence, a neighbour was permitted to develop his property.
Held: The failure to register the status gave a right to compensation, but in fact the claimant had suffered no loss. Had the listing been recorded, he would have had to have paid more for the house.

Judges:

Laddie J

Citations:

Times 06-Jun-2003, Gazette 10-Jul-2003

Statutes:

Local Land Charges Act 1975 10(1)

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Land, Local Government

Updated: 08 May 2022; Ref: scu.183835

Trustees of the Chippenham Golf Club v North Wiltshire District Council: 1991

Citations:

(1991) 64 P and CR 527

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – Stretch v West Dorset District Council CA 10-Nov-1997
A local authority has no ability to grant an option to renew a lease, even though it has the power to grant a lease and would benefit from the wrongful grant. The land was held for an express statutory purpose and was not ‘corporate land’ within the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Local Government

Updated: 08 May 2022; Ref: scu.184240

Chief Constable of Kent v V: 1982

In order to obtain an injunction with respect to property in the possession of a defendant, the right sought to be enforced need not be a proprietary right of the claimant, nor a right for the benefit of the claimant itself. (Slade LJ dissenting)

Judges:

Lord Justice Donaldson, Lord Denning MR, Slade LJ

Citations:

[1982] CLY 2495, [1983] QB 34

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – Bonalumi v Secretary of State for the Home Department CA 1985
In the course of extradition proceedings, an order was obtained under the 1879 Act. The defendant sought to appeal against the order, and applied to the Court of Appeal.
Held: The procedure under the 1879 Act was in the course of criminal . .
Cited – Worcestershire County Council v Tongue and others ChD 6-Aug-2003
The defendants had been convicted of offences involving mistreatment of animals, and debarred from having custody of animals. They were now in breach of that order, and the council sought a civil order allowing it access to their land to remove any . .
Cited – Chief Constable of Hampshire v A Ltd CA 1984
The court explained Chief Constable of Kent -v- V: ‘jurisdiction to grant an injunction on the application of the Chief Constable in that case existed only if he could be found to have a sufficient interest in making the application, and they appear . .
Cited – Worcestershire County Council v Tongue, Tongue, and Tongue CA 17-Feb-2004
The defendants had been convicted of animal welfare offences, and banned from keeping animals. The claimant sought to enter the premises to remove animals, but were denied entry.
Held: The court had no power to make an order to allow access . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Extradition, Local Government, Litigation Practice

Updated: 08 May 2022; Ref: scu.183550

Regina (on the application of Carlton-Conway) v Harrow London Borough Council: CA 14 Jun 2002

The appellant had objected to a neighbour’s planning application. Contested applications could only be handled under delegated powers where the permission sought would comply with the relevant policies. The application was granted because in the officer’s mistaken view it did comply. On appeal to the High Court it was held that what mattered was the officer’s subjective judgement.
Held: The scheme under which the delegated powers were exercised allowed for no subjectivity. He did retain some discretion, but must at least make a full consideration as to whether it complied. He had not done so in this case, and the grant of permission was invalid. The later grant of the permission by the full council did not change that.

Judges:

Lords Justice Pill and Robert Walker and Sir Martin Nourse

Citations:

Gazette 27-Jun-2002, Times 11-Jul-2002

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

Appeal from – Regina (on the Application of Carlton-Conway) v London Borough of Harrow Admn 7-Nov-2001
The applicant objected to an application for planning permission by a neighbour. The authority authorised officers to exercise delegated powers to grant permission where no objection had been received. Even then the officer could exercise the power . .

Cited by:

Appealed to – Regina (on the Application of Carlton-Conway) v London Borough of Harrow Admn 7-Nov-2001
The applicant objected to an application for planning permission by a neighbour. The authority authorised officers to exercise delegated powers to grant permission where no objection had been received. Even then the officer could exercise the power . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Planning, Local Government

Updated: 08 May 2022; Ref: scu.174166

Senbanjo v Brent London Borough Council: ChD 4 Jan 2001

A local authority notice to complete issued by local authority to a tenant acquiring a house under the right to buy provisions, was not valid where one tenant had withdrawn from the purchase application, and the authority had accepted that the other could proceed. The removal of a tenant amounted to a relevant outstanding matter to be resolved, and the remaining tenant should be allowed time to complete transaction. The time should begin to run again. Having accepted the withdrawal of one tenant, the local authority was bound in to allow the many tenants the appropriate in time period to proceed.

Citations:

Times 04-Jan-2001

Statutes:

Housing Act 1985 140 141

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Land, Local Government, Housing

Updated: 08 May 2022; Ref: scu.89170

First Corporate Shipping Ltd (T/A Bristol Port Co) v North Somerset District Council: CA 15 Jun 2001

A local plan could itself be challenged by an application under the Act, but that section could not properly be used to challenge a decision by the local authority not to hold an inquiry before adopting the plan. Where the process had concluded, and appeal was appropriate, but where it had not got to that stage, it was not. It sought a quashing order which was not appropriate at this stage.

Citations:

Times 15-Jun-2001

Statutes:

Town and Country Planning Act 1990 287

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Planning, Local Government

Updated: 08 May 2022; Ref: scu.80554

Alghile v Westminster City Council: CA 2 Mar 2001

A person offered temporary housing, on being acknowledged to be homeless, could not accept the offer and then claim it was unsuitable. The duty was satisfied when the offer was accepted. However the authority must make this clear to the applicant when confirming the offer. The applicant would then face an uncomfortable choice of accepting the offer or requesting a review and rejecting the offer and facing the consequences.

Citations:

Times 09-Mar-2001, [2001] EWCA Civ 363

Links:

Bailii

Statutes:

Housing Act 1996 193(5) 202

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Housing, Local Government

Updated: 08 May 2022; Ref: scu.77727

Regina v Westminster City Council, ex parte Hutton: 1985

H challenged the fee set for applying for a livence to operate a sex shop. The administrative costs on which the fee was based in the year in question included a sum representing the supposed shortfall in fee income against administrative costs in the previous year.
Held: In setting the application fee for a sex shop licence, the fee could reflect not only the processing of applications but ‘inspecting premises after the grant of licences and for what might be called vigilant policing . . in order to detect and prosecute those who operated sex establishments without licences’.
The Council was free to fix fees reflecting all the three necessary elements on a rolling basis without adjusting surpluses and deficits in each year.
Forbes J said: ‘I accept entirely that to carry forward a deficit from one year to another may result in anomalies when considering the effect of that process on applicants for grants or renewal of what are annual licences. The persons who, in the year in which the deficit is brought in, seek the grant or renewal of licences may well not be the same people who sought the grant or renewal in the previous year. Those in the previous year may have been fortunate to be undercharged. There is no certainty that, by bringing the deficit into the next year’s accounts and therefore recouping from the next year’s applicants, the authority will be exacting the money from those who morally ought to pay. But to my mind such a comparison is itself irrelevant in the context of local authority finance. The statutory accounts of local authorities are structured on the basis that shortfalls in one year must be carried into the next year’s accounts. The identity of the ratepayers who contribute to the General Rate Fund is changing all the time. If an authority, as a matter of policy, which is itself not challenged on the ground of immateriality, decides that the cost of a service from year to year shall not fall on the ratepayers, that decision would benefit ratepayers of different identities and may disadvantage or advantage from year to year different persons who benefit from the service. I accept [Westminster’s counsel’s] contention that when a charge is based on an annual budget, which must be concerned with situations which themselves will not be verifiable until after the end of the year in question, the only sensible way to fix the level of the charge is to take one year with another.’

Judges:

Forbes J

Citations:

(1985) 83 LGR 516

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – Hemming (T/A Simply Pleasure Ltd) and Others v Westminster City Council Admn 16-May-2012
The applicant had sought a license for a sex establishment. He paid the (substantial) fee, but complained that the Council had not as required, resolved to set the fee, and that in any event, the sum did not reflect the cost of administering the . .
Cited – Hemming (T/A Simply Pleasure Ltd) and Others, Regina (on The Application of) v The Lord Mayor and Citizens of Westminster CA 24-May-2013
The claimant had submitted an application for a licence to operate a sex shop. On its failure it sought repayment of that part of the fee which related to the costs of supervising the system, rather than the costs of dealing with the application. It . .
Cited – Hemming (T/A Simply Pleasure Ltd) and Others, Regina (on The Application of) v Westminster City Council SC 29-Apr-2015
The parties disputed the returnability of the fees paid on application for a sex establishment licence where the licence was refused. The fee was in part one for the application, and a second and greater element related to the costs of monitoring . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Local Government, Licensing

Updated: 08 May 2022; Ref: scu.565400

Gillett v Kent Rivers Catchment Board: 1938

Judges:

Stable J

Citations:

[1938] 4 All ER 810

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – East Suffolk Rivers Catchment Board v Kent HL 1941
An exceptionally high spring tide caused many breaches of the banks of the River Deben, and extensive flooding, including the respondent’s farm. By section 6 of the 1930 Act, the appellants had a statutory power to maintain the flood defences, but . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Local Government, Utilities

Updated: 08 May 2022; Ref: scu.472057

Smith v Cawdle Fen, Ely (Cambridge) Commissioners: 1938

The plaintiff’s land had been damaged by flooding. The defendants had power to execute works which might have prevented the floods.
Held: The defendants were under no duty, having only a power. The statute did not direct or require the defendant to do such work.

Judges:

du Parcq J

Citations:

[1938] 4 All ER 64, (1938) 82 Sol Jo 890, (1938) 37 LGR 22, (1938) 160 LT 61

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Cited – East Suffolk Rivers Catchment Board v Kent HL 1941
An exceptionally high spring tide caused many breaches of the banks of the River Deben, and extensive flooding, including the respondent’s farm. By section 6 of the 1930 Act, the appellants had a statutory power to maintain the flood defences, but . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Utilities, Local Government

Updated: 08 May 2022; Ref: scu.472056