Local housing authorities referring homelessness applications to another housing authority on ground of local connection - destitute asylum seeker previously residing in accommodation provided under asylum agency's dispersal scheme - residence not of 'own choice' and incapable of founding local connection

Al-Ameri v Kensington and Chelsea Royal London Borough Council; Osmani v Harrow London Borough Council: HL (Lord Bingham of Cornhill, Lord Hope of Craighead, Lord Scott of Foscote and Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe): 5 February 2004

The applicants were destitute asylum seekers who had been allocated accommodation in Glasgow by the national asylum support service under its compulsory dispersal scheme.

On becoming eligible for assistance, as homeless persons under the Housing Act 1996, they moved to London and applied for accommodation to local housing authorities that referred their applications to Glasgow City Council on the ground that, as residents of their 'own choice' in Glasgow, they had a local connection there under section199(1)(a).

Their appeals to county courts were dismissed.

The Court of Appeal [2003] EWCA Civ 235; [2003] 1 WLR 1289, by a majority, allowed their appeals.

The local authorities appealed.

Ashley Underwood QC and James Findlay (instructed by Director of Legal Services, Kensington and Chelsea Royal London Borough Council) for Kensington and Chelsea; Ashley Underwood QC and Kelvin Rutledge (instructed by Solicitor to Harrow London Borough Council, Harrow) for Harrow; Jan Luba QC and Stephen Reeder (instructed by Lewis Nedas & Co) for the applicant in the first case; Jan Luba QC and Liz Davies (instructed by solicitor, Shelter) for the applicant in the second case; Richard Drabble QC and Jacqueline Williamson (instructed by Lewis Silkin) for Glasgow City Council, interveners.

Held, dismissing the appeals, that 'own choice' signified the choice a person had made or not made to reside in a particular district; since it was a cardinal feature of the dispersal scheme that an asylum seeker in need of accommodation should go where he was directed and that no account should be taken of his preference, he had no choice as to the locality where accommodation was provided and no local connection based on residence of choice could ever be shown; and that, accordingly, the applicants' residence in Glasgow was not of their 'own choice' and founded no local connection under section 199(1)(a) of the Act.

(WLR)