HousingApplications for mandatory housing renovation grants - absence of estimates - local authority not entitled to refuse applicationsR v Greenwich London Borough Council, ex parte Glen International Ltd and another: CA (Pill and Mummery LJJ and Sir Ronald Waterhouse): 17 March 2000

The housing authority issued notices under ss.189 and 190 of the Housing Act 1985 requiringcertain works to be carried out.

The applicants, who owned the properties concerned, subsequently applied for housing renovation grants under Pt.

VIII of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 (since repealed).

The authority refused the applications on the ground that relevant estimates, required by the statute, had not been provided.

Hidden J granted the applicants judicial review of the decision.

The authority appealed.

Andrew Arden QC and Christopher Baker (instructed by the Solicitor, Greenwich London Borough) for the authority.

Richard Drabble QC and Gregory Jones (instructed by Bowling & Co) for the applicants.Held, dismissing the appeal, that the plain intention in Pt.

VIII of the 1989 Act was to make the approval of certain grants mandatory and that those were applications which the authority was 'required to approve'; that under the statutory scheme mandatory grants were payable by operation of ss.113, 116 and 117 and therefore s.102 could not be read so as to require that 'no grant shall be paid' if estimates were not contained within the application, when made; that the discretion the authority had in s.102(2)(b) to dispense with estimates became, in the case of mandatory grants, an obligation if the purpose of the scheme was to be achieved; and that, the application was to be treated as valid and the obligation in s.113 to approve it was not defeated on the ground that the prescribed form of application did not contain two estimates.