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A west London council has been told by the Court of Appeal that its housing allocations policy is unlawfully discriminatory.
Hillingdon Council’s policy of requiring people to live in the borough continuously for at least 10 years before qualifying for the housing register indirectly discriminates against Irish Travellers and non-UK nationals, Lord Justice Lewison said.
He added that such discrimination is “unlawful unless justified; and that Hillingdon has not yet shown such justification”.
The judgement was issued last week by the Court of Appeal following a challenge by Kurdish refugee Yilmaz Gullu.
Mr Gullu’s initial case was dismissed, but he was granted permission to appeal after a similar complaint brought forward by two Irish Travellers against Hillingdon Council succeeded.
The council attempted to show “that, taking the scheme as a whole, the negative effect on the relevant protected groups has been overcome”.
But the judge ruled that Hillingdon had failed to demonstrate how changing the 10-year residency rule would compromise the “legitimate aim of rewarding people with a local connect”.
He concluded that the authority has breached its Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) under the Equality Act 2010.
Lord Lewison added that although the council was not required to consider the potential impacts of its housing allocations policy “on every conceivable group that shares a protected characteristic”, it should have considered the position of non-UK nationals after Mr Gullu made his first legal challenge in 2016.
He suggested Hillingdon could introduce a “special rule for refugees” exempting them from the 10-year residency rule, as well as a different requirement for people with no fixed abode to mitigate discrimination against Irish Travellers.
A spokesperson for Hillingdon Council said: “We accept the Court of Appeal’s ruling and will now be taking steps to review our social housing allocation policy in accordance with the judgement. We will not be pursuing an appeal in this matter.”
UPDATE: at 13.54am, 24/04/19 This article has been updated. The original article reported in the headline that it was the High Court that had made this judgement. It has been updated to reflect that this ruling was carried out in the Court of Appeal.
UPDATE: at 10.05am, 29/04/19 A statement from Hillingdon Council was added to the story.