Local authority-promoted Planning Act 2008 scheme faces judicial review

Campaigners have launched a judicial review challenge to the first scheme to be promoted by a local authority under the infrastructure planning and consenting regime contained in the Planning Act 2008.

In March Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin granted consent for the Heysham to M6 link, a 4.6km dual carriageway.

The £123m scheme – which is being promoted by Lancashire County Council – is intended to provide better access to Morecambe as well as industrial areas that include Heysham power stations and the Port of Heysham.

However, campaign group Transport Solutions (TSLM) has announced that it will challenge the minister’s decision to grant approval.

Five grounds are advanced for the challenge:

  1. The scheme is not a nationally significant infrastructure project, under the Planning Act, so should not have been dealt with by the Infrastructure Planning Commission/National Infrastructure Directorate;
  2. Consultation was inadequate “because [the county council] ruled out discussion of the principle of the scheme and the route chosen”;
  3. National policy statements on ports and nuclear power were used to justify the scheme, “but were not relevant in the absence of any definite plans”;
  4. The western route was “wrongly dismissed, without going through the appropriate procedures”;
  5. The county council failed to carry out surveys of otters, a European protected species, as they were legally obliged to do, “so failed to assess potential harm to them”.

David Gate, chair of TSLM, said: “The decision [to approve] was a great disappointment to opponents of this controversial project. It is the wrong solution to the district’s transport problems.

“But we have sought legal advice, and that advice is that the decision is wrong in law, too. The consensus opinion is that there are five very substantial grounds on which the decision should be challenged…. These areas of concern call into question the legality of the decision made by the Transport Secretary.”

Gate added: “There is still so much opposition to this damaging scheme. We owe it to the many people who have objected strongly to follow the legal advice we are receiving.”

TSLM is to apply for an order capping the amount of money it will have to pay if it loses the case.

See also: Four Planning Act 2008 judicial reviews launched in one week – Angus Walker’s Planning Act 2008 blog