Q&As

Can a county council build residential housing for sale or rent if it doesn’t have a housing function? If yes, is there any legal or practical bar to the use of an LLP vehicle to undertake the build?

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Published by a LexisNexis Local Government expert
Published on: 19 June 2018

Local authority powers

Local authorities are statutory corporations, created by Parliament as single legal entities, as described in Hazell v Hammersmith and Fulham:

‘local authority, although democratically elected and representative of the area, is not a sovereign body and can only do such things as are expressly or impliedly authorised by Parliament.’

When making a decision, each relevant statutory provisions and more general rules about corporations and public authorities need to be considered. Every local authority must, therefore, have statutory Authority for all its actions. For further reading on relevant considerations, see Practice Note: Key considerations in local authority decision making.

Section 1 of the Localism Act 2011 (LA 2011) sets out the Local authority’s general power of competence. The Competence Power gives specified English local authorities (which includes an English county or district council, as per LA 2011, s 8) the power

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Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom
Related legal acts:
Key definition:
County council definition
What does County council mean?

The upper tier of two-tier authorities, generally responsible for core services such as adult social services, education, transport and highways, waste disposal and strategic planning.

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