Land promoters and developers group calls for six more High Court judges specialising in planning cases

In its response to the Ministry of Justice’s consultation on Judicial Review Reforms Beyond Nationally Significant Infrastructure the Land, Planning and Development Federation (LPDF) said this would help to prevent delays in the process.

Appointing these specialist judges would make it “highly likely that there will need to be a review of the pay schedules for High Court planning specialists, in order to ensure that a suitable number and calibre of judges can be recruited”.

It said this might mean the statutory limit on High Court judge numbers would need to be increased.

The LPDF also said major housing and commercial developments should be considered as national infrastructure given the Government’s focus on the delivery of new homes and economic growth.

“However, vexatious and/or unjustified judicial reviews of decisions are on the increase, and they are causing significant delay in the planning process,” the response said.

Major housing development should be defined as schemes consisting of 100 or more new homes and major commercial growth as 10,000 square metres or greater.

“These definitions will ensure that delays can be minimised for a greater number of proposals, whilst also ensuring that the court system is not overburdened,” the LPDF said.

It also called for the right of appeal to be removed in all cases deemed totally without merit.

The federation said there was a lack of data on delays arising from judicial reviews, and urged the ministry to establish a monitoring regime to fully understand the impacts on planning.

Mark Smulian