Local Faith Ltd, R (on the application of) v Registrar General for England & Wales [2025] EWHC 1795 (Admin)

[2025] EWHC 1795 (Admin)

Case No AC-2024-LON-004240

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE

KING’S BENCH DIVISION

ADMINISTRATIVE COURT

Venue The Royal Courts of Justice

Date Thursday, 26 June 2025

Strand

London WC2A 2LL

Before

MR JUSTICE WALL

THE KING

Between

(on the application of LOCAL FAITH LTD)Claimant

REGISTRAR GENERAL FOR ENGLAND & WALESDefendant

MR D TROMPETER KC appeared for Claimant.

MR A O'CONNOR appeared for Defendant.

JUDGMENT

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[1]THE JUDGE: This is a renewed application for leave to judicially review a decision taken by the defendant on 27 September 2024 not to register a building at 19 Town Square, Basildon, Essex as a religious building under the Places of Worship Registration Act 1855 (“the Act”).

[2]The property is owned by a company called Basildon Estates Ltd. They have leased the property to another company, known as Room for Faith Ltd, who have, in turn, sublet it to the claimant.

[3]The claimant's stated purpose in acquiring the sublease is to make the building available to be used for religious meetings and acts of worship. In the form on which the application for registration was made, the claimant represented that the congregation which was to use the building for religious purposes was an Islamic congregation (question 6), that the denomination of the congregation was Sunni-Islam (question 6A) and that the congregation met regularly for worship (question 7).

[4]The claimant now accepts that there was no such single congregation which intended to use the building for religious purposes. It is their case that they will make the building available to any religious group wishing to use it. They do not normally intend to levy a charge for this service. They want the building to be registered under “the Act” because, if it is so registered, there will be no liability for the tax commonly referred to as "business rates", in respect of that building. The fact that their aim in making the application for registration under the Act is to avoid such liability is legally irrelevant.

[5]The defendant is charged with adjudicating on applications made for registration under “the Act”. The law

[6]Certification is controlled by section 2 of “the Act”, the relevant part of which reads:

"Every place of meeting for religious worship of Protestant Dissenters or other Protestants, and of persons professing the Roman Catholic religion, . . not heretofore certified and registered or recorded in manner required by law, and every place of meeting for religious worship of persons professing the Jewish religion, not heretofore certified and registered or recorded as aforesaid, and every place of meeting for religious worship of any other body or denomination of persons, may be certified in writing to the Registrar General of Births, Deaths, and Marriages in England, through the superintendent registrar of births, deaths, and marriages of the district in which such place may be situate; and such certificate shall be in duplicate, and upon forms in accordance with Schedule A to this Act …" 7. Schedule A sets out the form of the undertaking generally required to be signed by those who make applications for registration. It reads as follows: "

I, the undersigned, of" (there is then a requirement to give an address), "under and by virtue of the Places of Worship Registration Act 1855, certify that a certain building known by the name of (the building address must then be inserted), "within the superintendent registrar's district" (the district is then to be identified), "was used or [as an alternative form, “is to be used”], is intended to be used as a place of meeting for religious worship and will, accordingly be forthwith used as a place of meeting for religious worship by a congregation or assembly of persons calling themselves" (the name of the group is then to be inserted). 8. Guidance as to how the group should be described on the form is contained in subparagraph (d) to the schedule: "Here insert 'Protestant Dissenters,' 'Independents,' 'Particular Baptists,' 'Wesleyan Methodists,' 'Roman Catholics,' 'Jews', or other religious denomination of, or religious appellation adopted by, the persons on whose behalf the building is certified; but if those persons decline to describe themselves by any distinctive appellation erase the words “calling themselves,” and insert “who object to be designated by any distinctive religious appellation.”

[9]The current form produced under section 2 and the schedule contains questions relating to the identification of the premises (questions 1 to 4) and questions relating to the identity of the particular group which intends to use the building for religious purpose (questions 6 to 7). Additionally in question 11, the application must be signed to the effect that "the building is to be used as a place for religious worship by the said congregation"; that meaning the congregation previously identified in the answers to questions 6 to 7.

[10]This part of the Act was considered by the Supreme Court in Hodkin v Registrar General of Births, Deaths and Marriages

[2012] EWHC 3635

in which it was made clear that the term "religion" in the Act was to be more widely construed than had previously been thought and was to include organisations, such as the Church of Scientology, which do not have a more traditional monotheistic or polytheistic worship and belief system. The decision in this case

[11]The relevant part of the decision letter reads as follows:

"The criteria for the certification of a building as a place of religious worship takes into account the judgment of the Supreme Court in Hodkin. We are not satisfied that the application meets the requirements. The application does not meet the criteria for religious worship because there is no body or denomination of persons who uses the building or property for that purpose and the activities which you have confirmed have taken place in that building are either commercial or ad hoc in nature"

. The grounds of challenge

[12]There are two grounds which the claimant seeks to advance.

[13]The first is that the defendant has applied the wrong test to reach their decision. In particular, the decision letter refers to Hodkin, which it is asserted is irrelevant to the facts of this application. Further, the decision letter indicates that the registrar has looked solely to past use in reaching their decision rather than the use to which the building is intended to be put.

[14]I do not regard either of those contentions to be arguable. The reference to Hodkin does not aver at any point that reliance has been placed on anything said in Hodkin to validate the decision reached in this case. It merely avers that the Registrar has looked at the merits of this case with the broad approach adopted in Hodkin in mind.

[15]The reference to "past use" rather than "future use" is, I am sure, a reflection of the information contained in the application form which indicates that the building was already in use as a religious building by a particular group. Although the application is in respect of future use, it is on its face based on past activity. In any event, the defendant’s refusal to register in this case was based on the defendant's assertion that, in order to qualify a building for registration under “the Act”, there had to be a single group intending to use it for religious purposes as opposed to it being a building open to hire by any and every religious group. The outcome would have been the same whatever the Registrar’s starting point. There was no single group who had used for religious purposes; there was no single group intending to use for such purposes.

[16]The second (and main) ground of challenge is as to the rationality of the decision. It is averred that, in reaching this decision, the registrar has taken into account irrelevant matters and failed to give weight to relevant matters, such that the decision made was not one properly open to the registrar on the facts. In simple terms, it is contended that the registrar should have registered this building if it was intended by the claimant that the building should be used by a series of religious groups for acts of worship and not refuse the registration application solely on the basis that there was no single identified group who intended to use it.

[17]It is the defendant's case that the decision made by the registrar was the only decision open to the registrant to make. They say that, as a matter of statutory interpretation, a building can only be registered under “the Act” if the building is to be used by a body or denomination of persons. Here, the stated aim of the claimant is to allow the building to be used by any religious group which might seek to use it from time to time. This precludes there being a particular body or denomination of persons who can be identified and who intend to use it. This, they assert, is further made clear from the terms of schedule A to the Act and that the application form, which has been produced under schedule A, truly represents the statutory test, even though the form itself was produced many years after the Act itself became law.

[18]The schedule and the form, it is said, stipulate that the application for registration must make clear the single religious body which does intend to make use of the building for religious purposes. That body is then referred to as "the persons on whose behalf the building is certified", which is a further indication that there must be a particular religious body on whose behalf this application is made and not a more general hope or intention that the building will be used for generalised religious activity.

[19]The defendant further asserts that the registrar was correct to refer to the case of Hodkin in their decision letter for reasons that I have already given. In part, the defendant seeks to rely on part of the judgment in Hodkin as being supportive of their position that there must be an identified body of people who intend to use the building as a base for their religious activities: for example, paragraph 63 of the judgment of Lord Toulson in which he says: "The broader interpretation accords with the purpose of the statute in permitting members of a religious congregation, who have a meeting place where they perform their religious rites, to carry out religious ceremonies of marriage there".

[20]They further rely on the fact that the application was made on the basis that the building was to be used by a Sunni-Muslim congregation and that no such congregation exists and, therefore, even if they are wrong, as far as their submissions on statutory interpretation are concerned, there was no basis in which this application could have been successful in this case.

[21]In my judgment, the decision in this case as to whether to grant leave rests on the answer to this question: does there have to be a single body or denomination of worshippers identified as users or intended users of a building in order for that building to be registered under the Act? If so, as a secondary matter, is there such a group of people identified in this case? If the answer to the first question only permits of the answer "yes", this claim is doomed to fail unless such a single group exists and has been identified. If the only answer is "no" or there is a proper argument to be had as to the correct answer to this question, I should give permission for that point to be argued.

[22]I have concluded that it is not arguable that the wrong test has been applied in this case. In my judgment, “the Act” is abundantly clear that there must be a single and identified body or denomination of persons, who intend to use the building for religious worship if that building is to be registered under this statute. “The Act” does not merely stipulate that the building is to be used for religious purposes generally, it permits registration of buildings which are to be used in that way by an identified particular group. In my judgment, any other interpretation of the statute would be to strain the clear statutory language to breaking point. That obvious interpretation is consistent with the aim of “the Act” when passed, which was to allow particular religious groups outside of the established church to have recognised buildings of their own to use as a base for worship and community events.

[23]My conclusion is also consistent with the interpretation given to this Act by Lord Toulson in Hodkin and, finally, it is fortified by the form which must be completed in order to apply for registration. That form faithfully reflects the requirements set out in section 2 and the schedule to the Act.

[24]That being my conclusion as to the way in which this statute must inevitably be read, the application must fail. Even had I decided that it was arguable that there is no need to identify a single group in order to apply successfully to have a building registered, there would be no merit in granting this application for permission to bring judicial review proceedings. That is because the form which I have seen and on which this application was made is clear on its face that this was an application not brought on behalf of various religious groups who might want to use the building at some time in the future, but by a specific identified group, namely, Sunni-Muslims, who had an intention to use it. That group did not exist and had no such intention.

[25]My attention has been drawn to other material produced by the claimant, which was included in the bundle of material sent to the defendant at the time at which the application was considered. In that material, the claimant sets out their general business plan. That plan speaks to the business model of hiring out venues to allow various religious groups to worship in them. However, it was not the general business plan which was set out in the application form. The form concerned a particular Sunni-Muslim group identified as the group which used and wanted to continue using the building for religious purposes were the application to be granted. The claimants assert that these details were entered by them on the form once it had been made clear to them that the Registrar would not accept an application made on behalf of religious groups generally. The group identified was supposed to be no more than an example of the congregations which might wish to make use of the building. All of this is not a reason to complete a form such as this in a wholly misleading way. The claimants could have submitted a form containing their business plan and then challenged the decision of the Registrar to reject it if and when she did. Of course, had that occurred and I am correct in my analysis of “the Act”, that challenge would too have failed.

[26]It, therefore, follows that, on both of these bases, I do not regard this as a proper case to grant leave to bring judicial review. ________ Epiq Europe Ltd hereby certify that the above is an accurate and complete record of the proceedings or part thereof. Lower Ground, 46 Chancery Lane, London WC2A 1JE Email: civil@epiqglobal.co.uk =