Case No. EWHC-185-(Admin)

135.On the facts of this case in my judgment the Claimant could not be determined as safe in his flat by any reasonable housing authority due to the fire safety risk. This risk was or should have been apparent to the Defendants’ because they had accepted that the Claimant did have a level disability requiring equipment and wheelchair use and day care on their own files. No one appears to have doubted the accepted level of disability would have prevented him descending 7 flights of stairs fast, if a fire arose and the lift was not to be used. This Court was provided with no evidence to show that the Defendants had considered whether the Claimant was suitably housed at home at his 7th floor flat taking into account the fire risk. I find that the Defendants, on the balance of probabilities, failed to take into account this crucial factor. Defence counsel at the hearing did not make submissions in response to the Claimant’s fire risk point. It is not mentioned in the Defendants’ response letters. Nor do the Grounds of Response deal with this issue. So in my judgment the Defendants’ case that they were fulfilling their S.188(1) duty after 26 September 2022 by deciding the Claimant was suitably housed at home was irrational. They failed to take into account a really important matter: fire safety. 136.However that irrationality had no effect in law or in fact because the Claimant had suspended or ended the Defendants’ duty in relation to his application by choosing to stay put on 26.9.2022 instead of accepting the Defendants’ offer of suitable alternative interim accommodation. In circumstances where the Claimant was refusing to move into suitable interim accommodation it cannot be said that the Defendants were in breach of their duty to provide accommodation thereafter whatever their subsequent decision was. This was so unless the Claimant later changed his mind and told the Defendants that he had changed his mind on the need for interim accommodation and that he would accept a one bed ground floor property or because there was a change of circumstances. I have been provided with no evidence that he changed his mind or told the Defendants that he had done so or that there was any change in circumstances.