Walthamstow woman wins legal fight against council who offered her house in Stoke-on-Trent

A woman from Walthamstow has won her legal fight against her local council who wanted to re-house her and her family more than 150 miles away in Stoke-on-Trent.

Mother-of-three Nadia Zaman argued that it was legally “incumbent” on Waltham Forest Council to “secure accommodation” as “close as possible” to her home.

Instead, she was offered a council house in Stoke-on-Trent, a three-hour drive from her east London home and her mother.

Ms Zaman also raised concerns about being a victim of “racism or discrimination” in the Potteries.

Lord Justice Newey, Lady Justice Asplin and Lady Justice Nicola Davies have concluded the council’s “accommodation acquisitions policy” was lawful.

But they said it was “not apparent” that the policy was duly implemented – or that accommodation in Staffordshire was the “closest property to the borough” the council could secure.

Appeal judges considered the case, at a Court of Appeal hearing in London, after Ms Zaman challenged a ruling by a county court judge.

Ms Zaman, who asked the council for help after struggling to pay rent on her home in Walthamstow, argued that moving to Stoke would take her too far away from her mother, who needed her help.

She also said relatives would not be able to help with child-care.

Lawyers for the council said Waltham Forest’s accommodation acquisitions policy provided for properties to be procured “as close to the borough as possible” – and they said the evidence did not establish that that policy “was not duly implemented”.

Lord Justice Newey said, in a written ruling published on Friday, that an “acute” shortage of housing in London meant it had become common for London councils to offer people, to whom they owed a “main housing duty” under housing legislation, accommodation outside their boroughs.

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