Commentary on Sections Part 1 - Housing Conditions Chapter 1 - Enforcement of Housing Standards: General Section 5: Category 1 hazards: general duty to take enforcement action
65.Section 5 imposes a general duty on LHAs to take appropriate enforcement action where there is a category 1 hazard. Subsection (1) sets out the courses of action that may be available to the local housing authority:
	to serve an improvement notice under section 11;
	to make a prohibition order under section 20;
	to serve a hazard awareness notice under section 28;
	to take emergency remedial action under section 40;
	to make an emergency prohibition order under section 43;
	to make a demolition order under section 265(1) or (2) of the 1985 Act;
	to declare a clearance area under section 289 (2) of the 1985 Act.
66.Under subsections (3) and (4), the LHA is under a duty to take the best course of action available to it in relation to the hazard. LHAs cannot simultaneously take more than one of the actions set out in subsection (2), for example make a prohibition order and serve an improvement notice dealing with the same hazard. This is to ensure that LHAs have properly considered the appropriate action and owners are not asked to comply unnecessarily with more than one requirement.
67.Subsection (5) enables an LHA to take the same course or a different course of action if the action already taken has not proved satisfactory. It also provides that, where an LHA has given notice, under section 289 of the 1985 Act, that it intends to declare a clearance area containing a property to which the duty in section 5 applies, but has decided to exclude that property from the area, it remains under a duty to take one of the remaining courses of action in section 5 in relation to the hazard.