According to a statment released from Downing Street today, nuclear plants, trainlines and windfarms will be built quicker thanks to rule changes designed to stop blockers getting in the way of the Government’s Plan for Change.
Current rules mean cases can be brought back to the courts three times – causing delay and hundreds of millions of cost to projects that have been approved by democratically elected ministers, while also clogging up the courts.
Data shows that over half (58%) of all decisions on major infrastructure were taken to court, getting in the way of the current Government’s mission to boost building.
The Government has confirmed today that this will be overhauled, with just one attempt at legal challenge for cynical cases lodged purely to cause delay rather than three.
On average, each legal challenge takes around a year and a half to be resolved – with many delayed for two years or more – and the courts have spent over 10,000 working days handling these cases.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer 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.
“This is the government’s Plan for Change in action – taking the brakes off Britain by reforming the planning system so it is pro-growth and pro-infrastructure.”
The current first attempt – known as the paper permission stage – will be scrapped, while 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.
To ensure ongoing access to justice, a request to appeal second attempt will be allowed for other cases.
Lord Banner KC, author of the Independent review into legal challenges against Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects, said: “My review concluded that there is a clear case for streamlining judicial reviews on consenting decisions for nationally significant infrastructure projects, given that delays to these projects cause real detriment to the public interest.
“In the course of my review, I saw broad consensus from claimants to scheme promoters that a quicker system of justice would be in their interests, provided that cases can still be tried fairly.
“I am therefore pleased to see the Government acting on the back of my review. In particular, reducing the number of permission attempts to one for truly hopeless cases should weed out the worst offenders, without risking inadvertent delays because judges choose to err on the side of caution.”
Lord Banner added: “I look forward to seeing these changes help to deliver a step change in the pace of infrastructure delivery in the months and years ahead.”
