Court of Appeal hears challenge to government’s changes to PDR rules

Climate change campaigners opposed to the government’s changes to permitted development rights took their legal challenge to the Court of Appeal today (5 October). Campaign group Rights: Community: Action – which calls itself a “coalition of campaigners, lawyers, planners, facilitators, writers and scientists, united by a shared commitment to tackle the climate emergency” – is seeking a judicial review of measures that the government has described as “the most radical reforms to our planning system since the Second World War”. The reforms it is opposed to make changes to permitted development rules and use classes, making it easier to build up, demolish and rebuild, and change the use of a property without needing planning permission. The group is seeking to quash three statutory instruments used by the secretary of state to bring in the changes. At the High Court last year the group, represented by law firm Leigh Day, sought to have all three statutory instruments quashed, arguing that the reforms were approved too quickly, and without proper consideration of the potential damage they could do. It alleged that the reforms had been pushed through without an adequate assessment of the environmental consequences and the equality impact, and aired its concerns that they will lead to the creation of “slum housing”. However, Rights: Community: Action lost its case in November when two High Court judges ruled that the instruments were lawful. At a hearing today, lawyers for the campaigners asked a three-judge panel at the Court of Appeal to overturn that ruling, saying that the judges erred when considering whether there had been an adequate assessment of the environmental consequences. “Ground 1 of the claim in the court below contended that the three SIs were unlawful because they should have been subject to a strategic environmental assessment (SEA) as required by the SEA Directive and the SEA Regulations,” they said in legal documents submitted to the court. “The court below dismissed this ground on the basis that the three impugned statutory instruments did not fall within the scope of the directive, because they did not either (1) set the framework for future development consent of projects, or (2) modify an existing framework for future development consent of projects, and therefore they were not ‘plans and programmes’ that required a strategic environmental assessment.” This, they argued today, is incorrect. “The sole ground of appeal is that the impugned SIs are within the scope of the directive, because they do set the framework for future development consent of projects under EU law, or alternatively, because they modify an existing framework for future development consent of projects.” Today’s case was heard by appeal court judges Sir Keith Lindblom, Lord Justice Coulson and Lord Justice Birss. The judges said they would give their ruling at a later date. Photo © Kin Cheung/AP/Shutterstock