Section 17 of the Housing Act 1985 empowers a local housing authority, inter alia, to acquire “houses, or buildings which may be suitable as houses” for the provision of housing accommodation either by agreement or compulsorily, in the latter case with the authority of the Secretary of State. It has been held that this includes a power to acquire houses in need of repair and improvement with a view to improving them as housing accommodation.
Ministerial general guidance on the making of a compulsory purchase order (“CPO”) emphasise that one should only be made where there is a compelling case in the public interest. It also emphasis that an acquiring authority should be sure that the purposes for which it is making the CPO sufficiently justify interfering with the human rights of those with an interest in the land affected. This means having regard in particular to Article 1 of the First Protocol to the ECHR (Protection of property) and Article 8 of the ECHR (Right to respect for private and family life).
In Braithwaite v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government [2012] EWHC 2835 (Admin) the claimant sought to quash the decision of the Secretary of State confirming a CPO made by the local housing authority in respect of a house owned by him. The house had fallen into general disrepair, with broken and boarded windows and a badly overgrown garden. The authority stated that its purpose in making the CPO was to facilitate the return of the house to residential use. It had been concluded by the inspector that the house no longer provided a safe and healthy environment for day-to-day living and that the claimant’s use of the property over the decade had been sporadic and intermittent.
One of the claimant’s grounds of challenge was that in terms of the ECHR, the making of the CPO was not proportionate. He contended, in particular, that one reason for leaving the house empty was that he had gone to care for his elderly mother living a hundred miles away. The court rejected this ground, and his other grounds, of challenge. It held that the CPO struck a fair balance between his rights under Article 1 and the public interest in securing that empty properties should be brought into residential use. It also held that the compelling social need for housing in the area outweighed his rights under Article 8.
John Martin
