Disabled facilities grant - meaning of 'safe' - works to minimise material risk sufficient to satisfy threshold test

R (B) v Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council: CA (Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, President, Lords Justice Clarke and Sedley): 4 February 2004

The council refused the claimant's application for a grant to build an additional bedroom, so that his autistic eldest son would no longer have to share with a younger brother towards whom he was uncontrollably aggressive.

The claimant sought judicial review.

Mr Justice Stanley Burnton [2003] EWHC 1832 (Admin) found that the mandatory requirement to provide a disabled facilities grant under section 23(1)(b) of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 did not apply where the purpose of the works was the safety of those staying in the same house as the disabled person and did not ensure the safety of the disabled person himself.

The claimant appealed.

Claire Miskin (instructed by Ridley & Hall, Huddersfield) for the claimant; Gerry Facenna (instructed by Chief Law and Administration Officer, Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council, Halifax) for the council.

Held, allowing the appeal, that to qualify for a grant on the grounds of making a property safer, the proposed works had to be such as to minimise the material risk as far as was reasonably practicable; that, since on the facts the application fell within section 23(1)(b), once the test of safety had been met, the fact that there might be other areas of risk with which the grant could not deal was immaterial; that, since sections 23(1) and 24(3) had to be applied sequentially, it was not permissible to decide the section 23(1) issue by reference to the section 24(3) criteria as to whether the works were necessary and appropriate; and that, accordingly, the council would be directed to reconsider the application.

(WLR)