Supreme Court refuses to hear claim that council should have conducted Habitat Regulations Assessment before green-lighting farm expansion

The Supreme Court has refused to hear a case that alleged Herefordshire Council failed to carry out the proper habitat regulations assessments before giving planning permission for farm buildings bordering the River Wye catchment area.

Herefordshire Council gave permission for the development after its ecology officer, James Bisset, advised the council’s planning committee that there was no triggers for a Habitats Regulation Assessment process because the building would not lead to any possibility of effects to the River Wye, which is a ‘Site of Special Scientific Interest’.

The appellant, David Sahota, fears that increased spreading of manure in the area would pollute the Wye and other watercourses.

He argued that the council failed to carry out an appropriate assessment of the plan's conservation implications.

Sahota brought a claim for judicial review, which was later dismissed by HHJ Worster. The claimant later won permission for the Court of Appeal to consider his appeal on the following two grounds:

1. whether the judge erred in admitting a witness statement from James Bisset, the ecology officer at the Respondent authority.
2. whether the Respondent's planning committee was misled into believing that there was no need for a Habitats Regulations Assessment.

However, Lord Justice Singh dismissed the appeal, finding that Sahota's "real complaint is not so much that the planning committee was misled by the officers' report…nor even that [ecology officer James Bisset’s] evidence was wrongly admitted by the judge…it is rather that Mr Bissett's advice was wrong”.

He added: "But in order to succeed in that argument the Appellant would have to do more than show that others [...] might take a different view. What has to be shown is that there are public law grounds which would entitle the court to intervene by way of judicial review, in particular that there was a demonstrable error in the reasoning process; or that the conclusion was irrational."

He concluded that there were no such public law grounds in the case.

Sahota then issued sought to appeal the decision at the Supreme Court.

Commenting on the appeal at the time, lawyers representing Sahota said, if successful, the case would "set a legal precedent that will protect rivers across the country, by requiring tighter environmental safeguards to be met before new livestock developments are approved".

But a Supreme Court panel comprising Lord Kitchin, Lord Leggatt and Lord Burrows has now refused permission, finding that the application did not raise an arguable point of law.

Sahota was supported by public interest litigation organisation Good Law Project and received more than £20,000 in donations gathered on crowd funding platform CrowdJustice.

Adam Carey