Does a selective licence refusal help me evict a tenant?

Hi all, I am in a very complicated situation where I have a tenant at my property, not paying rent for 10 years. The estate agency that put the tenant in went under administration. They did try the S21 route with no luck, as he kept on causing damage to all repairs that were carried out.

The council got involved, especially now that there is selective licensing going on. I did apply for one in the past, and received a refusal 2 weeks ago.

They said this was refused because: ”refused on the grounds that you have failed to undertake prescribed works required to bring the property up to a reasonable and safe standard and no acknowledgement has been made in relation to completing the outstanding works and therefore, the local authority cannot be satisfied that the proposed management arrangements are satisfactory and on this basis we are unable to grant the licence.”

I did indeed refuse to carry out any works as the tenant (1) did not allow us access, (2) cancelled my previous builder and cost me my deposit and skip licensing etc, (3) he will tamper with any works.

We did send an S8 and are due to begin legal proceedings.

Can I use this refusal as a support to get the tenant out?

Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks,

M