Homeless travellers

Mr Maughan and his family were travellers unlawfully occupying the council's land. When faced with a possession claim, they applied to the council as homeless. The council offered temporary hostel-style accommodation while it considered the application but meanwhile pressed on with its claim for possession of the land.

Maughan applied for a judicial review, saying the council was wrong to press on with eviction before the homelessness application was resolved. He said if the council were found to owe him a homelessness duty, it could meet that by leaving him where he was. He also claimed that, as he was a gypsy with a cultural aversion to conventional housing, the offer of hostel-style accommodation could not be "suitable" interim housing.

The judge dismissed the claim. He said the council was legally entitled to treat the possession claim and the homelessness application as separate issues: the outcome of the latter would not necessarily affect the decision to evict.

Nor was there any rule that conventional housing could never be suitable interim accommodation for a gypsy family and here the council was entitled to consider it suitable because five months earlier Maughan had been living in conventional council housing.