Case for extending NSIP judicial review reforms to other planning regimes “not yet made out on the evidence”: Law Society

Chancery Lane’s comments came in its response to a Ministry of Justice (MoJ) consultation that closed on 27 August.

Section 13 of the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025, which came into force earlier this year, now requires NSIP cases to proceed directly to an oral permission hearing and removes the right of appeal for claims which are deemed totally without merit at that hearing.

The MoJ claimed that the reforms “streamlined judicial review for NSIPs, helping to reduce delays, deter weak and meritless claims and ensure cases are resolved more quickly.”

The Ministry’s consultation proposed extending the reforms beyond NSIPs to major housing, transport and energy developments.

The Law Society said its central message was that “the case for extending the NSIP reforms to other planning regimes has not yet been made out on the evidence”.

The Law Society argued that judicial review plays a vital role in the constitutional balance of powers, in that it:

• encourages good governance
• improves the quality of public decision-making
• promotes a culture of accountability that protects individual rights, and
• supports the confidence of international investors in the UK as a rule of law jurisdiction

It added that it was too late to assess the impact of the NSIP reforms, and they should be evaluated before being used as a template for wider reform.

Chancery Lane meanwhile argued that court capacity is "the underlying constraint". Any reform must be accompanied by adequate resourcing of the Planning Court and the Court of Appeal, and regular publication of data on the progression of planning claims, it said.

The Law Society said: “Judicial review of a planning decision does not permit the court to second-guess the merits of a development: it considers only whether the decision was taken in accordance with the law.

“Any reform must balance efficiency with the maintenance of access to justice and meaningful public participation, including compliance with the UK’s obligations under the Aarhus Convention.

“Before further restrictions are introduced, the UK government should publish clear data on whether comparable delays exist in other planning regimes and evaluate the impact of the existing reforms.”

Earlier this month the Public Law Project also argued that “there is not adequate evidence that it is in the public interest for these reforms to be extended to other planning regimes”.

The Land, Planning and Development Federation (LPDF), a property and development industries group, has meanwhile called for the appointment of at least six High Court judges to serve as planning specialists who would not sit on other types of cases.

In its response to the consultation it argued that this would help to prevent delays in the process.