33. The third and final question, posed in para 3 above, requires attention to the approvals and directions in LAC(93)10, referred to in para 5 above. They identify the local authority upon which in a particular case the powers and duties under section 21 are conferred and cast. The effect of the directions (which create the duties) is, insofar as is relevant, that a local authority must provide residential accommodation under section 21 to:

Lambeth contends that Mr Mani falls within none of those categories; he contends that, as it happens, he falls within all of them.

34. An initial issue, not fully argued, relates to the date at which Mr Mani’s circumstances must satisfy one of the three criteria. Mr Giffin suggests that it is the date of Mr Mani’s issue of these proceedings: with respect, that seems wholly illogical in circumstances where the focus is upon the legality of a prior decision. Mr Seddon contends that the choice is between the date of Mr Mani’s application to Lambeth or the date of its rejection. Although in my view the outcome is the same, I confidently choose the latter. In Mohamed v Hammersmith and Fulham LBC [2001] 3 WLR 1339 Lord Slynn of Hadley, at paragraph 23, held that, when a local authority was required to consider whether an applicant for housing under the Housing Act 1996 had a local connection, it should consider the circumstances existing at the date of its decision (or later review) …

36. In the Mohamed case the applicant had lived in Hammersmith for six months prior to its initial decision that he had no local connection and for a further two months prior to its review, which was to the same effect. For all but the first three months of that period he had lived in interim accommodation provided by Hammersmith pending the decision. It was held that, certainly by the time of the review and (as I infer) even by the time of the initial decision, the applicant had acquired a local connection. In paragraph 17 Lord Slynn equated normal residence with ordinary residence and cited R v Barnet LBC ex p Shah [1983] 2 AC 309 for the proposition, upon which Mr Giffin relies, that ordinary residence has to be an abode adopted not only voluntarily but ‘for settled purposes as part of the regular order of his life for the time being, whether of short or of long duration’. Then, in paragraph 18, Lord Slynn continued:

‘It is clear that words like ‘ordinary residence’ and ‘normal residence’ may take their precise meaning from the context of the legislation in which they appear but it seems to me that the prima facie meaning of normal residence is a place where at the relevant time the person in fact resides. That therefore is the question to be asked and it is not appropriate to consider whether in a general or abstract sense such a place would be considered an ordinary or normal residence. So long as that place where he eats and sleeps is voluntarily accepted by him, the reason why he is there rather than somewhere else does not prevent that place from being his normal residence. He may not like it, he may prefer some other place, but that place is for the relevant time the place where he normally resides. If a person, having no other accommodation, takes his few belongings and moves into a barn for a period to work on a farm that is where during that period he is normally resident, however much he might prefer some more permanent or better accommodation. In a sense it is ‘shelter’ but it is also where he resides. Where he is given interim accommodation by a local housing authority even more clearly is that the place where for the time being he is normally resident. The fact that it is provided subject to statutory duty does not, contrary to the appellant authority’s argument, prevent it from being such.’

37. By 25 and 27 April 2001, when Lambeth interviewed him and decided to reject his application, Mr Mani had been living continuously in its area for almost six months. Mr Giffin concedes that, on Lord Slynn’s analysis, his adoption of residence there was sufficiently voluntary. I hold that its purposes were also sufficiently settled, Eurotower being the compass of the regular order of his life during that period. He was ordinarily resident in Lambeth for the purpose of the first criterion.

38. Had I reached a contrary conclusion, I would have proceeded to hold that the third criterion had been satisfied in that Mr Mani had no settled residence, was in the area of Lambeth and had been suffering from mental disorder. I will say nothing about the second criterion, which raises the question whether the compulsory disregard of asylum support extends to the determination for which it calls.