Use classes — Single household — Property used as temporary accommodation for young people — Council deciding that residents living together as single household — Judge finding no sufficient relationship between residents — Whether necessary for residents to have relationship beyond common need for accommodation and support — Article 3(6)(i) and Class C3 of Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987 — Appeal allowed
The respondent lived next door to three adjoined terraced houses, which were used by a housing group to provide temporary accommodation for young homeless people. The appellant council were the local planning authority. The housing group had total management control of the properties. It selected the residents, allocated rooms to them and decided how long they should stay.
The lawful use of each of the properties fell within Class C3 of the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987, namely: “Use as a dwelling house… by not more than six residents living together as a single household…”. Use as a hostel was excluded from that class by virtue of Article 3(6)(i) of the 1987 Order.
Each of the group’s properties housed a maximum of five residents. There was no internal access between the properties. The residents within each property shared cooking, food-storage and dining facilities, and had locks on their bedroom doors.
The respondent repeatedly complained to the council that the use of the property did not fall within Class C3. She claimed that there had been a material change of use to use as a hostel. Following an investigation, the council concluded that the properties remained within Class C3.
That decision was overturned by a judge in judicial review proceedings brought by the respondent. The judge found that there had been a change of use because: (i) the residents did not form a single household, since there was no relationship between them that provided a particular reason for their living in the same house, but merely a common need for accommodation, support and resettlement; and (ii) the use of the properties had all the characteristics of a hostel, namely the provision of relatively short-stay, inexpensive sleeping accommodation and shared communal facilities. The council appealed.
Held: The appeal was allowed.
The judge had gone too far in taking the view that there had to be a relationship between residents, beyond their common need for accommodation and support, before they could constitute a single household. The fact that Class C3 was restricted to households of not more than six residents was highly relevant. The very fact of having a maximum of six residents made it more likely that they were a single household: the smaller the number of occupants, the more intimate, integrated and cohesive their occupancy was likely to be. The authorities did not go so far as to suggest that residents coming to the house neither as a preformed group nor for a predetermined period could never be a single household, or that homogeneity was a necessary precondition: Simmons v Pizzey [1979] AC 37, Barnes v Sheffield City Council (1995) 27 HLR 719 and Rogers v Islington London Borough Council [1999] 3 EGLR 17 considered. The precise nature of the relationship between the residents was a material consideration in each case. The council had overlooked it, and would need to redecide all the issues in the case in the light of the present judgment.
Simon Bird (instructed by the solicitor to Kettering Borough Council) appeared for the appellants; Hannah Markham (instructed by Wood Shawe & Co, of Kettering) appeared for the respondent.
Sally Dobson, barrister
