I had another example the other day of a planning "decision" arguably falling foul of the local planning authority's duties under the Race Relations Act. In this recent case, the LPA was seeking to prevent new student accommodation (being constructed for a local university) being used by language students in the summer vacation period. They accepted that there is no policy objection given that the construction is actually for an established university - but took the view that the "spirit" of the policy (which would have precluded planning permission for accommodation for language students) would be offended if language students could occupy in the summer period. This seemed to me to offend the RRA duty - for example, a visiting research student, say from the US, staying in the accommodation short term whilst undertaking some work at the university would be acceptable - but not a student say from Italy coming to the UK to learn English.
Happily a compromise has been reached - i'd be interested to hear if readers have any experience of similar issues
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