Market - private company set up by local authority to operate markets - decision to exclude trader amenable to judicial review

R (Beer (trading as Hammer Trout Farm)) v Hampshire Farmers' Markets Ltd: CA (Lords Justice Dyson, Longmore and Sir Martin Nourse): 21 July 2003

Having established successful farmers' markets, the council decided to hand over the running of the markets to the stallholders with help and advice from the council.

H Ltd, a company limited by guarantee, was incorporated in December 2000.

It was initially registered at the council's offices and started operating in January 2002.

The company secretary and business development manager was an employee of the council who was also one of its directors.

The other directors were stall-holders.

The claimant sought judicial review of the company's decision to refuse to allow him to participate in its markets.

The judge quashed the company's decision and the council appealed.

Gillian Carrington (instructed by the Head of Corporate and Legal Affairs, Hampshire County Council, Winchester) for the council, appearing as an interested party; James Maurici (instructed by Thring Townsend, Bath) for the claimant.

Held, dismissing the council's appeal, that although the markets were neither statutory nor charter markets, their essential feature was that they were held on publicly owned land to which the public had a right of access; that the company owed its existence to the council and 'stepped into the shoes' of the council, performing the same functions previously performed by the council; that from the date of the company's incorporation until the time when it started operating the markets, and to some extent thereafter, the council assisted it by providing facilities and finance; that the company was not simply a private company established to run markets for profit, but was established by a local authority to take over on a non-profit basis the running of markets previously run by the council in the exercise of its statutory powers in the public interest; and that, therefore, the company was acting as a public authority within the meaning of section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 and was accordingly amenable to judicial review.