The claimants challenged the plan for a major railway development, saying that an environmental impact assessment should have been made first.
Held: (Sullivan LJ dissenting) The claimant’s appeal failed. The strategy as proposed was not such as to constitute a plan which might require the environmental impact assessment. The DNS would have no legal influence on Parliament, which was not obliged to comply with it or even to have regard to it in reaching its decision. Nor was it appropriate or possible for the court to assess the degree of influence the DNS was likely to have as a matter of fact on Parliament’s decision-making process: ‘Parliament is constitutionally sovereign and free to accept or reject statements of Government policy as it sees fit, and the court should not seek to second guess what Parliament will do. Moreover the decision whether to give consent to the project as outlined in the DNS is very controversial and politically sensitive. No final decision has yet been taken as to the form or length of debate that is to take place in Parliament.’
The hybrid Bill procedure through which the strategy passed would allow sufficient effecive public participation .
Lord Dyson MR spoke of the different degrees of influence which a plan might have: ‘At one end of the spectrum is the plan or programme which conclusively determines whether consent is given and all material conditions. Such a plan or programme clearly sets the framework. It is an example of legal influence of highest order. At the other end of the spectrum is the plan or programme which identifies various development options, but which states that the decision-maker is free to accept or reject all or any of the options.’
Lord Dyson MR, Richards, Sullivan LJJ
[2013] EWCA Civ 920, [2013] WLR(D) 308, [2013] PTSR 1194, [2013] PTSR 1194
Bailii, WLRD
Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive (Parliament and Council Directive 2001/42/EC
England and Wales
Citing:
At Admn – Buckinghamshire County Council and Others, Regina (on The Application of) v Secretary of State for Transport Admn 15-Mar-2013
The claimants challenged the strategy published by the government for the development of the propose HS2 railway line, saying that it required first a strategic environmentalimpact assessment under European law.
Held: The claim failed. The . .
Cited by:
Appeal from – HS2 Action Alliance Ltd, Regina (on The Application of) v The Secretary of State for Transport and Another SC 22-Jan-2014
The government planned to promote a large scale rail development (HS2), announcing this in a command paper. The main issues, in summary, were, first, whether it should have been preceded by strategic environmental assessment, under the relevant . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Planning, Environment, Transport, European, Constitutional
Updated: 17 November 2021; Ref: scu.513694