Challenging Thurrock Council’s Relocation Decision
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Sarah Waller
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Multiple challenges to Thurrock Council’s decision to send a family 280 miles away through Reloc8
We brought several urgent cases on behalf of our client, a homeless mother of 3 with ties to the Thurrock area, after the council used Reloc8 to offer her a property in County Durham. This involved 2 urgent applications for judicial review with interim relief and a homeless appeal concerning the local authority’s failure to provide emergency accommodation.
The background
Our client is a refugee from Sri Lanka with a history of C-PTSD due to her treatment in her home country. In January 2026, after she was granted status in the UK, her NASS accommodation ended and she applied to the local authority as a homeless person. Thurrock Council offered her accommodation in Peterlee, County Durham, under the relief duty through Reloc8. The property was around 280 miles away from her former accommodation. Our client’s husband had just got a job in the Thurrock area, and she was receiving specialist mental health support available to those in the London area. Her children were well settled in local schools and nursery and she had begun to build a life locally. Our client refused the offer of accommodation and requested a s.202 review through her support worker. Our client’s NASS accommodation then came to an end.
The client and her support worker approached Osbornes for advice and representation. Nick Bano was counsel instructed from Garden Court Chambers.
Court challenges
Osbornes contacted Children’s Social Services who provided emergency accommodation separately from the housing department, but this was located over 2 hours away from the children’s schools and the husband’s job. We made urgent representations to the local authority for it to act on its duty to provide accommodation pending appeal, where a final offer is made of a private sector tenancy under the relief duty. After Thurrock refused, Osbornes made an urgent application for judicial review with interim relief to get a mandatory order to force Thurrock to provide accommodation. The claim was allowed and the court ordered accommodation to be provided.
The day after the offer was made, Thurrock accepted the main duty towards our client, meaning that the duty to accommodate had become a discretionary power only. It re-offered the original Peterlee property under the main duty, and our client felt she had no choice but to refuse it again. Osbornes requested a further s.202 review with accommodation pending review. This was refused by Thurrock, which decided that the threshold for providing accommodation pending review had not been met.
Osbornes brought a second urgent judicial review of the failure to provide accommodation and sought interim relief. The case was listed for hearing on 31st March 2026 and at the hearing the judge ordered that accommodation must be provided and that, to be suitable, it must be within 45 minutes’ travel time of the children’s school. Accommodation was provided by Thurrock on 7th April 2026.
On 8th April Thurrock decided our client’s second s.202 review. It found that the original offer of the property in Peterlee was suitable and that she had to leave her current accommodation by 29th April. Osbornes brought a s.204 homeless appeal of that decision, and an additional appeal seeking accommodation pending appeal under s.204A. Thurrock failed to respond to emails requesting that accommodation be continued pending the appeal or to make a lawful decision on the request. An urgent hearing on the request for accommodation pending appeal was listed by the County Court. Thurrock then offered one additional week in the accommodation to give itself a chance to review its housing file and asked that the urgent hearing be vacated. Our client refused this and said we would ask for the hearing to be vacated only if Thurrock agreed to accommodate our client for the whole period of the homeless appeal, and it finally agreed to this. The substantive homeless appeal is still to be decided.
How can we help?
This case highlights the difficulties clients face in navigating the different and overlapping homeless duties. The duty at s.188(2A) to provide accommodation pending review when a PRSO offer is made as a final offer at the relief duty stage is not widely known, and the local authority did not seem to be aware of it.
Osbornes Law’s Housing, Social Care and Public Law team is experienced in handling urgent judicial review claims, including homelessness claims, providing swift and effective advice to uphold a client’s right to suitable accommodation. If you need legal advice, please contact us by:
- completing our online enquiry form;
- or calling us on 020 7485 8811
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