Francis Hoar acted pro bono for the appellant in the Court of Appeal, in an appeal against the High Court’s dismissal of a judicial review into a local council’s decision to build a shared driveway without seeking her consent: Anwar v Ealing London Borough Council [2025] EWCA Civ 813.
Background
The appellant, Mrs A, had lived in a house (owned by Mr C). In 2015 her neighbour, Mr J, had applied to the local council for the construction of the crossover, which removed the kerb, allowing vehicles to cross the shared pavement and access his driveway. The Council constructed the vehicle crossover without seeking Mrs A’s or Mr C’s consent.
Not until 2020 did Mrs A’s landlord complain to the council that the kerb had been dropped without his consent. The Council refused to revisit the decision it had made in 2015.
On a claim for judicial review (at which Francis did not appear) Dexter Dias KC, sitting as a deputy judge of the High Court held that s applications under section 184(11) of the Highways Act 1980 allows any person to apply for a kerb to be dropped in any property.
The appeal
Francis was instructed via direct access and agreed to act for Mrs A on a pro bono basis in her appeal to the Court of Appeal.
The Defendant argued that the Council did not have the power to construct a dropped kerb other than for a ‘vehicle crossing’ outside a property they owned. His argument of statutory interpretation was as follows:
- The words “any person” in s 184(11) cannot mean any person in the world, but by necessary implication must be confined to an owner or occupier of premises adjoining or accessing the footway or verge over which the crossover is requested.
- The phrase “a vehicle crossing” means a single crossing from a carriageway to a “premises”, meaning a single estate in land.
- In constructing the statute, an absurd interpretation should be avoided and it would be absurd for any person in the whole world to be able to apply for any kerb to be dropped anywhere in the country.
- In deciding this matter, the Court had to have regard to Mrs A’s right to the peaceful enjoyment of her property under Article 1 of Protocol 1 to the ECHR and the Court should apply an interpretation that avoided a disproportionate interference with A1P1 if it was possible to do so.
The Court did not accept that interpretation, finding that the words ‘any person’ must be distinguished from the limitation on the right to apply for a dropped kerb elsewhere in the section. It dismissed the appeal on the grounds that, at the point of Mr C’s application to the Council in 2020, it was obliged to treat the 2015 decision as lawful as it had not been challenged promptly at the time; and found that any challenge in 2020 should not have been permitted for being so considerably of time.
Read the judgment in full in Anwar v London Borough of Ealing Council [2025] EWCA Civ 813 (30 June 2025).