High Court judge dismisses council application for tree felling judicial review to be thrown out

A bid by Plymouth City Council for the High Court to dismiss without a hearing a judicial review challenge of the local authority's decision to fell an avenue of trees in its city centre has been rejected.

In a written order, Mrs Justice Lang described the application as "misconceived" and also made the rare decision to order the council to pay the claimant's costs of the application regardless of the outcome of the litigation.

Permission was granted earlier this month (15 June) for a substantive hearing of the claim, which challenges a decision by Plymouth's former Mayor Richard Bingley to chop down most of the trees on Armada Way as part of a regeneration project.

A late-night operation saw the council cut down more than a hundred trees on 14 March. But works were stopped short by a last-minute injunction that was handed down at 1 am.

The local campaign group behind the legal challenge, Save the Trees of Armada Way (STRAW), is seeking to make the injunction permanent and to quash the council's decision.

But ahead of the hearing, Plymouth applied for an order dismissing the case without hearing, arguing that the claim was now academic.

Responding to Plymouth's application, the judge said: "The events which have taken place since 14 March 2023, relied upon by the Defendant, have not become wholly academic."

She also dismissed an application from Plymouth for another interim hearing prior to the substantive hearing, concluding that it "would be a waste of public time and money, and contrary to the overriding objective".

Adam Carey