Ministers have announced measures to ‘unblock much-needed infrastructure projects’, including limiting opportunities to challenge them in the courts and allowing developers to pay into a pool to mitigate environmental damage.
The announcements follow press reports that the chancellor is set to back projects such as Heathrow expansion and the Lower Thames Crossing.
On Thursday, prime minister Keir Starmer announced changes to court rules, based on the Independent review by Lord Banner KC into legal challenges against Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects.
Downing Street summed this up as allowing ‘just one attempt at legal challenge for cynical cases lodged purely to cause delay rather than three’.
Mr Starmer cited National Highways’ A47 project, which was ‘dragged to court by a former Green councillor – his case was eventually dismissed as having ‘no logical basis’, after delaying the project by two years’.
He said: ‘For too long, blockers have had the upper hand in legal challenges – using our court processes to frustrate growth.
‘We’re putting an end to this challenge culture by taking on the NIMBYs and a broken system that has slowed down our progress as a nation.
‘The current first attempt - known as the paper permission stage - will be scrapped. And primary legislation will be changed so that where a judge in an oral hearing at the High Court deems the case Totally Without Merit, it will not be possible to ask the Court of Appeal to reconsider.’
Roger Mortlock, chief executive of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, accused him of using tired, divisive language, and said the government ‘should bring people together to tackle the climate emergency, not set them against each other’.
He said: 'Campaigners bringing legal challenges only do so because they think the law is being broken. Allowing judges to block these concerns as totally without merit is anti-democratic and, when it comes to the climate crisis, dangerously short-sighted.
‘For everyone’s sake, we should be building consensus, not dismissing people with real ideas and solutions as "blockers".'
Environment department Defra said its ‘common-sense’ changes ‘will help to deliver on the Government’s commitment to make 150 major infrastructure project decisions by the end of this Parliament, while also helping to halt and reverse the decline of species and natural habitats’.
The changes are set out in a new working paper and follow Norfolk County Council's decision to shelve its Norwich Western Link scheme, after concluding that Natural England would not allow it a licence to disturb rare bats.
Under current rules, infrastructure projects must secure mitigation or compensation for environmental harm to some protected sites and species before being granted planning permission, typically on a project-by-project basis, which Defra said ‘misses opportunities to find strategic solutions with the greatest benefits for nature’.
A new Nature Restoration Fund will allow builders to pool contributions to fund larger strategic interventions.
London mayor Sadiq Khan responded to a report that Ms Reeves was set to back a third runway at Heathrow by confirming that he remains opposed and would consider a legal challenge.
He told the London Assembly: ‘The aviation sector is important for growth, jobs and prosperity, but we face a climate crisis and a climate emergency.
‘The three big concerns that would need to be addressed if, in the hypothetical case, the speculation was to become a reality, is could a new runway be built that abides with carbon targets, concerns around noise pollution, and concerns around air pollution?
‘Should that speculation become a reality, we’ll of course consider the merits of that case. But I’m quite clear, my views on the expansion of Heathrow by a new runway haven’t changed.’
