Blake & Ors v London Borough of Waltham Forest
2014
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
UK
CORAM
- MRS JUSTICE SIMLER DBE
Areas of Law
- Administrative Law
- Human Rights Law
2014
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
UK
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
This case concerns the judicial review of the London Borough of Waltham Forest's decision to terminate a licence held by Christian Kitchen, a charity providing soup kitchen services, at Mission Grove car park. The central issue was whether the Council complied with the Public Sector Equality Duty as mandated by the Equality Act 2010. The court found that the decision-making process was flawed as it did not properly consider the adverse impacts on vulnerable users, particularly the risk of the soup kitchen closing, leading to a ruling that the Council did not discharge its duties under the PSED.
Judgment
MRS JUSTICE SIMLER DBE
This is an application for judicial review of a decision dated 17 April 2013, by London Borough of Waltham Forest (referred to below as ‘the Council’) terminating Christian Kitchen’s licence to operate a “soup kitchen” at the Mission Grove car park, London E17 (referred to below as ‘Mission Grove’), a Council owned car park, open 24 hours a day. Christian Kitchen, the Third Claimant, is a registered charity, whose trustees organise the soup kitchen (used, inter alia, by the First and Second Claimants). It is staffed entirely by volunteers from a consortium of local churches, preparing and serving hot meals and hot drinks to homeless vulnerable people in Walthamstow for more than 25 years. It provides about 80 hot meals per night and is open for one hour seven nights a week, all year round. Although the Council no longer provides funding (and has not done for many years) it has supported the soup kitchen by permitting Christian Kitchen to use Mission Grove for more than 20 years. The soup kitchen is a well-known local institution attracting praise from politicians and is strongly supported locally. However, anti-social behaviour (including street drinking, violent and intimidating behaviour) has been associated with users of the soup kitchen (albeit its extent is hotly contested) and Walthamstow High Street is undergoing substantial physical regeneration works leading the Council to conclude that the licence at Mission Grove should be revoked.
It is common ground that the Council was neither providing the soup kitchen service, nor was it under any mandatory duty to facilitate the continued operation of the soup kitchen, either at Mission Grove or elsewhere and was legally entitled to terminate the licence at Mission Grove (subject of course to compliance with any public sector equality duty engaged by such a decision). It is also common ground that the Council’s decision to terminate the licence engages the Public Sector Equality Duty (“the PSED”). Although under no obligation to do so, the Council offered an alternative site for relocating the soup kitchen, on Walthamstow Avenue (referred to as “the lay-by at Crooked Billet”) as a way of mitigating the impact of the revocation of the licence at Mission Grove. Christian Kitchen has rejected the alternative site offered on grounds of safety and accessibility. Despite efforts by Christian Kitchen to find its own suitable, alternative site, it has not been able to do so; but