Judge dismisses challenge to closure of adult education centre despite consultation failures

Andrew Burns KC, sitting as a deputy judge of the High Court, held that 31(2A) of the Senior Courts Act 1981 applied to the case.

It had been brought by BUJ, a protected party, by his father and litigation friend, MNO.

BUJ challenged the decision to close the Poverest adult education centre, sell the site for housing and transfer courses elsewhere in the borough, mainly to the Kentwood centre.

Poverest provides a wide range of courses including some for adult learners with learning difficulties and disabilities, the court heard.

Mr Burns was told that BUJ is aged 37 and is autistic with learning disabilities and epilepsy. He requires support with all aspects of daily living and has attended Poverest four days a week for 14 years.

BUJ can reach Poverest by vehicle in about 15 minutes, but is prone to seizures when travelling longer distances.

His grounds of challenge were failures to consult fairly before taking the decision, to make adequate inquiries prior to the decision and to have due regard to the public sector equality duty.

Bromley countered that these grounds were unarguable, and that relief would be detrimental to good administration and the overall benefits of restructuring.

Mr Burns found Bromley failed to consult. He said: “The decision was taken in the context of a wider review and I accept that consultation was not required of the users of every property included in that review.

“However once Poverest was identified during that review as a centre proposed for closure, long-term users of this adult education centre had a legitimate expectation to consultation in the same way that a local authority should consult residents of an old people's home or users of a care centre which they proposed to close.

“The fact that some courses would be provided elsewhere does not remove their legitimate expectation that the specialist Poverest courses would continue to be reasonably available to them.”

He also found though that it was not arguable that no reasonable authority could have been satisfied on the basis of the reports Bromley received that it possessed the information necessary for a decision.

Mr Burns also found the public sector equality duty had not been breached as Bromley “recognised the potential impact of the decision on equality objectives and knew there were equality implications”.

An equality impact assessment addressed the risk of longer travel distances for some service users as well as the benefit of shorter trips for others and addressed mitigations.

The failure to consult was “the only arguable error in this case” but Bromley needed to make cost savings “and the evidence shows that Poverest was an appropriate site for [sale for] housing unlike Kentwood”, Mr Burns said.

“Taking all this into account, I accept that the failure to consult was highly likely to have made no difference to the outcome.

“Although the claimant and others were entitled to be consulted, it is clear that nothing would have arisen in the consultation that could or would have changed the outcome.”

Mark Smulian