Councils scrap plan for judicial review over lost waste credits

Two local authorities have withdrawn their application for a judicial review against Defra’s decision to remove £65m in waste infrastructure credits.

North Yorkshire County Council and City of York Council said continuing with the judicial review, which was due to be heard at the end of the month, “would not be in the public interest”.

The change of heart came after Defra last November submitted its detailed grounds of defence and the councils took legal advice from Queen’s Counsel.

North Yorkshire had approved plans for the £1.4bn Allerton Waste Recovery Park in October 2012. In May 2013 the councils announced their intention to apply for a judicial review over Defra's subsequent withdrawal of credits.

Their grounds of challenge included that the Secretary of State did not make the decision in a proper manner and Defra failed to follow its own published criteria.

But in a statement issued this month, North Yorkshire and City of York said: “If the councils proceeded with the judicial review, and were successful, Defra would be required to repeat the decision making process but it is now clear that the likely outcome would be that Defra would reach the same conclusions and the funding support for the project would not be reinstated.”

David Bowe, Corporate Director for Business and Environmental Services at North Yorkshire, insisted that the legal advice was that the local authorities’ case was strong.

He added that the councils continued to believe that Defra had made an unlawful decision, but it was clear from this and other recent decisions that Defra did not wish to continue to support projects of this type anymore. 

“Even if we win, we cannot guarantee that we would get the credits back,” Bowe said. “We worked closely with Defra for many years on this project and feel very disappointed by the way they have conducted themselves but we now have to accept that the argument is not worth pursuing.”

Bowe said that the loss of credits did not mean the project was over. “We are continuing to work with our contractor, AmeyCespa, to mitigate the loss of waste infrastructure credits and complete the last details of the contract. The final decision on whether project remains affordable and value for money will be made later in 2014 when this work is completed.”