The claimant gamekeeper challenged the rules imposed by the respondent for the control of shooting of buzzards. He said that buzzard predation had made his own pheasant based business unviable.
Held: The licences refusal was quashed: ‘ NE’s overall decision-making on the five applications left it well aware that the Claimant’s small business was by 2014 in dire straits. NE’s decision-making had not followed a consistent path: new requirements and evidential issues had been raised on various occasions and what had previously been regarded as settled and no longer at issue was re-opened, for example in whether serious damage existed and was caused by buzzards, and by buzzards which could usefully be controlled. The Technical Assessor had also concluded that a licence for live capture was justified, and that recommendation was being rejected. Careful scrutiny of the application is what NE said was required. In this respect, that it is not how it was dealt with. Careful scrutiny by NE of the reasons for which it was proposing to refuse was required to see if a yet further refusal of licensed control was justified.’
Ouseley J
[2015] EWHC 3297 (Admin)
Bailii
Animals
Updated: 06 January 2022; Ref: scu.554642
