Air quality – SIMONICITY

Ruler

Or REULRR. Or the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill, introduced into Parliament on 22 September 2022. A Bill which I was only vaguely aware of until Nicola Gooch’s excellent blog post What Truss did on my holidays: It’s much more than ‘just’ the mini budget…. (26 September 2022).

As Nicola explains:

“If passed, REULRR will effectively sweep away any and all EU laws that the Government hasn’t actively decided to keep.

It does this by:

Repealing EU derived laws by the end of 2023. The government will be able to extend that deadline to 23 June 2026 (the tenth anniversary of the Brexit referendum) but can’t further extend it.
Repealing the principle of supremacy of EU law by the end of 2023. Currently, any EU decision reached before 1 January 2021 is binding on UK courts unless the government departs from it. However, this bill will subjugate all EU law in favour of UK law by default.
Repealing directly effective EU law rights and obligations in UK law by the end of 2023; and
Establishing a new priority rule requiring retained direct EU legislation to be interpreted and applied consistently with domestic legislation.”

She discussed this further at our clubhouse Planning Law Unplanned session last week on the Growth Plan, which Sam Stafford has now trimmed neatly into a 50 Shades of Planning podcast:

🍎 https://t.co/BaNDFpIlfb

🎧 https://open.spotify.com/episode/0vKryknMBdUBxOdidhTX26

You will remember that the European Union Withdrawal Act 2018 had the effect of retaining, post Brexit, EU-derived domestic legislation such as the regulations in relation to environmental impact assessment, strategic environmental impact and conservation of habitats, leaving it to Parliament in due course to determine the extent to which the legislation should subsequently be repealed or amended.

As explained in the explanatory notes to the REULRR Bill:

”The REUL [retained EU-derived law] framework established by EUWA, however, was not intended to be maintained indefinitely on the UK statute book and now the Government is in the position to ensure REUL can be revoked, replaced, restated, updated and removed or amended to reduce burdens.”

The Bill now places a firm deadline on that process:

“The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill facilitates the amendment, repeal and replacement of REUL by the end of 2023, and assimilates REUL remaining in force after that date by removing the special EU law features attached to it.”

The end of 2023 deadline can only be extended, to 23 June 2026 “should a lack of parliamentary time, or external factors, hinder progress towards reform of retained EU law prior to the 2023 sunset date.”

Is this of concern?

In short, yes of course. It may be said that the Government is committed to a principle of non-regression from current environmental standards, but given the current political pinball and the lack of relevant ministers with any real experience of the sheer complexity and nuances of what they are dealing with, frankly anything is possible. Campaign groups are certainly on edge: Brexit freedoms bill’ could abolish all pesticide protections, campaigners say (Guardian, 29 September 2022).

To an extent, at a high level, the principle of non-regression is built into the trade and co-operation agreement between the UK and EU which was signed on 30 December 2020 and came into force on 1 May 2021. The UK gave various, at least theoretically, binding commitments in the agreement as to non-regression from environmental levels of protection, which I describe in my 27 December 2020 blog post Brexit & Planning: An Update.

There are also generalised commitments within the Environment Act 2021 (which of course Parliament is always of course at liberty to amend or repeal as it chooses). The Government consulted in May 2022 in relation to its draft environmental principles statement. The statement has not yet been finalised and there is not yet any duty upon ministers to take it into account in their policy making. This may not be until summer 2023 at the earliest! The Office for Environmental Protection (a body established pursuant to the 2021 Act) has criticised the statement for “a relatively limited degree of ambition”. The OEP has similarly criticised as unambitious the Government’s draft environmental targets, also consulted upon pursuant to the 2021 Act.

As against these inchoate commitments to environmental standards, what is going to give in the face of a Government which, according to its Growth Plan, will be “disapplying legacy EU red tape where appropriate” in the investment zones it is proposing, and which proposes a Planning and Infrastructure Bill which will be:

“reducing the burden of environmental assessments
reducing bureaucracy in the consultation process
reforming habitats and species regulations”?

Genuine improvements to the processes are certainly possible. But do we trust the Government to strike an appropriate balance, hurtling towards a self-imposed December 2023 deadline and (at the latest) 2024 general election? In the coming year, most of our environmental legislation, and planning legislation to the extent that it is intertwined, will need to be reviewed, line by line, and, given that most of it is in the form of secondary legislation (and the sheer lack of time – after all the REULRR Bill covers all EU derived legislation!), there will be relatively limited Parliamentary scrutiny of that process. Even with the best of intentions, how is this timescale even going to be possible if we are to avoid a complete bodge-up? We have been treading (often polluted) water for so long and we still have no sense whatsoever of what the long trumpeted “outcomes focused” approach will look like in practice – eg see my 2 April 2022 blog post Is the Nature Recovery Green Paper The Answer? (& If So What Was The Question?)

On a slightly different, although possibly related, note….

At 6 pm on Wednesday 5 October 2022 we will be having a discussion on Clubhouse with barrister Hashi Mohamed, around the themes of his FT article The housing crisis sits at the centre of Britain’s ills (1 October 2022, behind paywall) and his recent book A home of one’s own, a trenchant and personal look at the politics of planning and housing.

Join via this link. If you use the link to RSVP in advance (you don’t have to) you’ll get a reminder when we start – and we can get a feel for likely numbers.

What is needed to calm the nerves all round – on planning, on housing, on environmental protection – is detail. When are we going to get it? HM Treasury announced on 26 September 2022:

“Cabinet Ministers will announce further supply side growth measures in October and early November, including changes to the planning system, business regulations, childcare, immigration, agricultural productivity, and digital infrastructure.”

Always just another month or so to wait, every time.

Simon Ricketts, 1 October 2022

Personal views, et cetera

Image courtesy of Estay Lim via Unsplash

Stansted Airport

This blog post covers yesterday’s High Court ruling in Ross & Sanders (obo Stop Stansted Expansion) v Secretary of State for Transport (Dove J, 7 February 2020), where the issue before the court was whether an application for planning permission for development at Stansted Airport, made to the local planning authority, Uttlesford District Council, by the airport under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, should instead have been pursued as a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP), to be determined by the Secretary of State for Transport. I also set out the timeline as to the council’s decision-making in relation to the planning application. I have limited what I say to a factual account, given that my firm is acting for the airport (alongside Tom Hill QC and Philippa Jackson from 39 Essex chambers).

The airport is subject to a cap of 35 million passengers per annum (mppa) and a cap of 274,000 air traffic movements (ATMs) per annum. On 22 February 2018 the airport submitted an application for planning permission which involved “building two new taxiway links, being a rapid entry taxiway and a rapid exit taxiway, and nine additional aircraft stands. These new developments are planned to take place in four separate locations within the existing footprint of Stansted Airport. It is uncontentious that these developments would increase the use of Stansted Airport’s single runway and its potential to handle aircraft movements. The planning application also includes a request for the planning cap of 35 million passengers per annum (“mppa”) to be increased to 43 mppa.” It was not proposed to increase the ATMs cap.

The relevant part of section 23 of the Planning Act 2008 provides that airport-related development is to be treated as an NSIP in the case of any “alteration” to an airport the effect of which is “to increase by at least 10 million per year the number of passengers for whom the airport is capable of providing air passenger transport services”.

Section 23(6) provides that “”alteration” in relation to an airport, includes the construction, extension or alteration of:

(a) a runway at the airport,

(b) a building at the airport, or

(c) a radar or radio mast, antenna or other apparatus at the airport.”

The Secretary of State for Transport determined on 28 June 2018 that the 10 mppa threshold would not be exceeded and that he would not exercise his discretionary power under section 35 of the Act to treat the proposals as nationally significant and therefore subject to the 2008 Act decision-taking process and a decision at a national level. The latter determination was taken against the background of the Secretary of State’s publication on 5 June 2018 of the government’s “”Airports National Policy Statement: new runway capacity and infrastructure at airports in south-east of England” (NPS) together with the policy “Beyond the horizon: The future of UK aviation-Making best use of existing runways” (“MBU”).” The MBU policy paper stated that the government would be using its Aviation Strategy to progress its wider policy towards tackling aviation carbon. “”[T]o ensure that our policy is compatible with the UK’s climate change commitments we have used the DfT aviation model to look at the impact of allowing all airports to make best use of their existing runway capacity.” The paper stated:

“Airports that wish to increase either the passenger or air traffic movement caps to allow them to make best use of their existing runways will need to submit applications to the relevant planning authority. We expect that applications to increase existing planning caps by fewer than 10 million passengers per annum (mppa) can be taken forward through local planning authorities under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. As part of any planning application airports will need to demonstrate how they will mitigate against local environmental issues, taking account of relevant national policies, including any new environmental policies emerging from the Aviation Strategy. This policy statement does not prejudice the decision of those authorities who will be required to give proper consideration to such applications. It instead leaves it up to local, rather than national government, to consider each case on its merits.”

Stop Stansted Expansion challenged the Secretary of State’s 28 June 2018 determination on two grounds: that the airport’s proposals would in fact lead to the 10 mppa cap being exceeded and that the Secretary of State should have used his discretionary power to treat the proposals as an NSIP, the claimant relying, amongst other things on a “suggestion that the application was in truth part of a wider project for expansion of passenger throughput in excess of the NSIP definition, and the ramifications of increased carbon emissions as a result of increased air travel which ought to have led to the conclusion that the development should be treated as an NSIP.”

On the first ground, the court accepted that the proposed works amounted to an “alteration” of an airport (the argument was as to whether the definition was for the purposes of these proposals limited to alterations to a runway but Dove J accepted a wider definition, given the word “includes” in sub-section (6)). However, the court found that the Secretary of State was correct to conclude that the 10 mppa threshold would not be breached:

“I am satisfied that the submissions of the Defendant in this respect are undoubtedly correct. The language of the statute in relation to whether the alteration will “increase by at least 10 million per year the number of passengers for whom the airport is capable of providing air passenger transport services” requires the Defendant to form a judgment in relation to that question. In my view that judgment is to be formed by asking what increase in capacity could realistically be achieved, not what might technically or arithmetically be possible. It requires an analysis based on how the infrastructure is likely to perform, not a hypothetical approach assuming speculative figures in relation to each aspect of the calculation of capacity to show what might be possible rather than what is likely to occur in practice.”

On the second ground, the court noted that from the statutory language of section 35 of the 2008 Act “the Defendant is granted a broad discretion as to whether or not to treat an application for development which does not otherwise meet the definitions for an NSIP as a project which requires development consent on the basis of national significance. Bearing in mind the prescriptive nature of the definitions for various types of NSIP contained in the 2008 Act, the discretion under section 35 is a broad one. Given the nature of the Defendant’s decision, as one which was exercised using a relatively broad discretion, the task of the Claimants to show that the judgment which the Defendant reached was unlawful is daunting.”

The court concluded that similarly ground 2 was not made out. One of the claimant’s submissions was that the MBU carbon emissions modelling was flawed and had “underestimated the effects of growth in aircraft traffic at Stansted airport”. The judge accepted the Secretary of State’s submission that in “reality this aspect of the Defendant’s decision was essentially based on reliance on the MBU policy, and that the substance of the Claimants’ case is in fact a challenge to the legality of that policy in disguise (see paragraphs 95 and 96 above). Certainly, the legality of that policy is now beyond argument. As such I accept that the Defendant was, lawfully, entitled to reach the conclusion which he did, based squarely on the MBU policy that “an increase in the planning cap at [Stansted]…could be adequately mitigated to meet the CCC’s 2050 planning assumption”. That was a conclusion which applied the provisions of the MBU policy (see paragraphs 38 to 40 above) which had considered that proposals of this scale would not imperil the achievement of climate change targets in the light of the modelling work which had informed the policy.”

“The Defendant has provided in the evidence a clear and coherent explanation of the purpose of the modelling (namely for long-term forecasting at a national level) and the basis on which it was constructed so as to inform and justify the policy in MBU relating to whether planning proposals at airports could be adequately mitigated and dealt with at the local level. Once this background to the technical work is understood, then it becomes clear that the criticisms of the Claimants, based upon short-term analysis or examination of individual years is without substance.”

Accordingly, the airport had been correct to pursue the proposals by way of an application for planning permission to the local planning authority, and the Secretary of State had not acted unlawfully in declining to intervene by way of directing that the proposals should proceed as an NSIP.

So was the local planning authority, Uttlesford District Council, now free to determine the application? Well this would have been the case if it had not resolved, against officers’ recommendations, to refuse planning permission on 24 January 2020, the decision notice then having been issued on 29 January 2020.

It has been a twisting route, summarised in the report prepared for Extraordinary Planning Committee meetings that were held on on 17 and 24 January 2020 (the passages in quotation marks below), with additional factual insertions by me:

The claimant made requests on 19 April and 14 June 2018 to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government for the application to be called in. He responded that the Secretary of State for Transport should first determine whether the application should be treated as an NSIP.

The Secretary of State determined on 28 June 2018 that the application was not to be treated as an NSIP. Stop Stansted Expansion issued judicial review proceedings in relation to that decision (those proceedings eventually being dismissed on 7 February 2020 as described above).

“On 14 November 2018, the Planning Committee resolved to grant the application, subject to conditions and subject to completion of an agreement imposing legally binding planning obligations (“section 106 agreement”). The Report and Supplementary Reports identified the planning obligations required. The precise form that the section 106 agreement should take, in accordance with the amended recommendation, was resolved to be delegated to officers. Subsequently, a proposed S106 Agreement was drawn up between the Council, Essex County Council (as relevant highway authority) and Stansted Airport Ltd.”

On 20 March 2019 the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government decided not to call in the application. Stop Stansted Expansion issued judicial review proceedings in relation to that decision (Legal bid lodged after Government rejects ‘call in’ of Stansted Airport planning application, Saffron Walden Reporter, 28 March 2019). Those proceedings were subsequently withdrawn.

The purdah period commenced ahead of local government elections on 2 May 2019.

“5. An Extraordinary Meeting of the Council was called for 25 April 2019 to consider the following motion:

“To instruct the Chief Executive and fellow officers not to issue a Planning Decision Notice for planning application UTT/18/0460/FUL until the related Section 106 Legal Agreement between UDC and Stansted Airport Limited and the Planning Conditions have been scrutinised, reviewed and approved by the Council’s Planning Committee after the local elections.

The motion was defeated by 14 votes to 18 votes.

6. A further Extraordinary Meeting was called to consider the following motion:

To instruct the Chief Executive and fellow officers not to issue the Planning Decision Notice for planning application UTT/18/0460/FUL until members have had an opportunity to review and obtain independent legal corroboration that the legal advice provided to officers, including the QC opinion referred to by the Leader of the Council on 9th April 2019, confirms that the proposed Section 106 Agreement with Stansted Airport Limited fully complies with the Resolution approved by the Planning Committee on 14 November 2018 such that officers are lawfully empowered to conclude and seal the Agreement without further reference to the Planning Committee.

The meeting was originally scheduled for 3 June but was deferred until 28 June to allow further time for consideration of legal advice.

7. An informal meeting was held on 30 April with members who had requisitioned the Extraordinary Meeting. It was agreed:

⁃ that officers would not complete the section 106 agreement and issue the

planning consent for the time being;

⁃ That the legal advice previously obtained from Christiaan Zwart, barrister,

would be circulated to all members;

⁃ That a briefing session would be held for all members, with Christiaan Zwart in attendance to answer questions about his advice;

⁃ That, if need be, further advice would be sought at Q.C. level and a further briefing for all councillors would be held. This advice would focus on whether the planning obligation requirements made by the Planning Committee have been incorporated fully and effectively into the s106 agreement, and on the origin and consequences of any “gaps” if any between the Planning Committee Resolution and the resulting S106 Agreement.”

At the local government elections on 2 May 2019, the council came under the control of Residents 4 Uttlesford by a substantial majority.

“8. A briefing meeting for all councillors was called for 14 May. Advice obtained from the Council’s barrister, Christiaan Zwart, was circulated prior to the meeting. He spoke to his advice on 14 May and answered questions.

9. Further advice was then obtained from Stephen Hockman Q.C. working jointly with Christiaan Zwart. Their joint advice was sent to members prior to a second briefing meeting held on 21 May. They answered questions raised by members at that briefing. Issues raised at the briefing meeting by members, and by Stop Stansted Expansion separately, led to additional further advice from Stephen Hockman, Q.C. and Christiaan Zwart. This also was shared with all members of the Council. In all cases information was shared on a legally privileged and confidential basis.

10. At the Extraordinary Meeting of Full Council on 28 June officers were instructed not to issue a Planning Decision Notice for planning application UTT/18/0460/FUL until the Planning Committee had considered:

(i) the adequacy of the proposed Section 106 Agreement between UDC and Stansted Airport Ltd, having regard to the Heads of Terms contained in the resolution approved by the Council’s Planning Committee on 14th November 2018;

(ii) any new material considerations and/or changes in circumstances since 14 November 2018 to which weight may now be given in striking the planning balance or which would reasonably justify attaching a different weight to relevant factors previously considered.

11. Since that meeting further expert legal advice has been obtained from Philip Coppel QC at the request of Members, and officers have been supporting members of the Planning Committee in preparing to consider the two matters set out above through a series of workshop sessions, in part owing to the significant change in membership of the committee. These sessions have taken members through the content of the draft obligations and issues that might be raised as potential new material considerations and regarded as a material change in circumstances since 14 November. They have provided opportunities for councillors and officers to ensure the obligations and issues are fully understood.

12. This report seeks to set out the issues comprehensively, to enable the Committee to comply with the Council resolution and authorise the release of the appropriate decision notice on the planning application.”

Officers recommended the following:

“The Assistant Director – Planning be authorised to issue the decision notice approving the planning application subject to the planning conditions as resolved by the Planning Committee on 14 November 2018 on signing of the amended S106 Agreement appended to this report.”

The Committee sat on 17 and 24 January 2020. Members rejected the officers’ recommendation (ten members voting to reject it, with two abstentions).

The reasons for refusal set out on the decision notice are as follows:

“1 The applicant has failed to demonstrate that the additional flights would not result in an increased detrimental effect from aircraft noise, contrary to Uttlesford Local Plan Policy ENV11 and the NPPF.

2 The application has failed to demonstrate that the additional flights would not result in a detrimental effect on air quality, specifically but not exclusively PM2.5 and ultrafine particulates contrary to Uttlesford Local Plan Policy ENV13 and paragraph 181 of the NPPF.

3 The additional emissions from increased international flights are incompatible with the Committee on Climate Change’s recommendation that emissions from all UK departing flights should be at or below 2005 levels in 2050. This is against the backdrop of the amendment to the Climate Change Act 2008 (2050 Target Amendment) to reduce the net UK carbon account for the year 2050 to net zero from the 1990 baseline. This is therefore contrary to the general accepted perceptions and understandings of the importance of climate change and the time within which it must be addressed. Therefore, it would be inappropriate to approve the application at a time whereby the Government has been unable to resolve its policy on international aviation climate emissions.

4 The application fails to provide the necessary infrastructure to support the application, or the necessary mitigation to address the detrimental impact of the proposal contrary to Uttlesford Local Plan Policies GEN6, GEN1, GEN7, ENV7, ENV11 and ENV13.”

If you are interested in the debate that led to these conclusions, you are out of luck: No webcast or sound recording of the 24 January session is apparently available. There is an apology on the council’s website:

“Unfortunately the broadcasting of today’s meeting failed. Officers worked throughout the day, in liaison with the supplier, to identify and rectify the problem without success.

It has now been established that the back-up local recording of the meeting also failed, meaning an audio recording of the meeting will not be available on the council’s website.

We sincerely apologise to those who had wanted to ‘listen in’ or ‘listen again’ to the meeting.”

From lack of sound to lack of soundness…

The inspectors examining Uttlesford’s local plan concluded in their 10 January 2020 post stage 1 hearings letter as follows:

“Unfortunately, despite the additional evidence that has been submitted during the examination and all that we have now read and heard in the examination, including the suggested main modifications to the plan (ED41) put forward by the Council, we have significant concerns in relation to the soundness of the plan. In particular, we are not persuaded that there is sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the Garden Communities, and thus the overall spatial strategy, have been justified. We therefore cannot conclude that these fundamental aspects of the plan are sound.”

But that, friends, is for another blog post.

Simon Ricketts, 8 February 2020

Personal views, et cetera

Blue Christmas

Duncan Field, Victoria McKeegan and I were speculating in our 16 December 2019 planorama vlog as to what the new Government’s legislative programme and policy priorities are likely to be in relation to planning, infrastructure and the environment

We now have the blueprint, in the form of the Queen’s Speech on 19 December 2019 and particularly the 151 pages of background notes published the same day.

There is going to be an “ambitious” planning white paper in due course, but what is promised in the meantime in this very blue paper that these notes represent? The government has little excuse not to deliver on what it has set out, given the size of its majority. The most relevant references are as follows:

Housing (pages 48 to 50):

“My government will take steps to support home ownership, including by making homes available at a discount for local first-time buyers.”

● The Government will support people to realise the dream of homeownership. One of the biggest divides in our country is between those who can afford their own home and those who cannot.

● The Government will shortly launch a consultation on First Homes. This will provide homes for local people and key workers at a discount of at least 30 per cent – saving them tens of thousands of pounds.

● The discount on First Homes will be secured through a covenant. This means these homes will remain discounted in perpetuity, supporting people now and in the future who aspire to own a home of their own.

● The Government will also renew the Affordable Homes Programme, building hundreds of thousands of new homes for a range of people in different places. This will help us prevent people from falling into homelessness while also supporting further people into homeownership.

● We will introduce a new, reformed Shared Ownership model, making buying a share of a home fairer and more transparent. This new model will be simpler to understand and better able shared owners to buy more of their property and eventually reach full ownership.

● To deliver on the homes this country needs, the Government is committed to building at least a million more homes over this Parliament. In the coming months we will set out further steps to achieve this, including an ambitious Planning White Paper and funding for critical infrastructure.

● The Planning White Paper will make the planning process clearer, more accessible and more certain for all users, including homeowners and small businesses. It will also address resourcing and performance in Planning Departments.

● The new £10bn Single Housing Infrastructure fund will provide the roads, schools and GP surgeries needed to support new homes. Alongside First Homes, this will ensure local people truly benefit from house building in their area and build support for new developments

● To help those who rent, the Government will build a rental system that is fit for the modern day – supporting landlords to provide high quality homes while protecting tenants. The Government’s Better Deal for Renters will fulfil our manifesto commitments to abolish ‘no fault’ evictions and to introduce lifetime deposits, alongside further reforms to strengthen the sector for years to come.

● The Government is taking forward a comprehensive programme of reform to end unfair practices in the leasehold market. This includes working with the Law Commission to make buying a freehold or extending a lease easier, quicker and more cost effective – and to reinvigorate commonhold and Right to Manage.

● The Government will ensure that if a new home can be sold as freehold, then it will be. We will get rid of unnecessary ground rents on new leases and give new rights to homeowners to challenge unfair charges. The Government will also close legal loopholes to prevent unfair evictions and make it faster and cheaper to sell a leasehold home.

● For those in the social rented sector, we will bring forward a Social Housing White Paper which will set out further measures to empower tenants and support the continued supply of social homes. This will include measures to provide greater redress, better regulation and improve the quality of social housing.

● This Government has committed to end rough sleeping by the end of this Parliament. The Government will continue to invest in key rough sleeping interventions, building on the progress that we made last year in reducing rough sleeping numbers. The Government will also continue to support those at risk of homelessness and rough sleeping through the continued enforcement of the Homelessness Reduction Act.

Building Safety Bill (pages 51 to 53):

“New measures will be brought forward…to improve building safety.”

● An enhanced safety framework for high-rise residential buildings, taking forward the recommendations from Dame Judith Hackitt’s independent review of building safety, and in some areas going further by:

○ Providing clearer accountability and stronger duties for those responsible for the safety of high-rise buildings throughout the building’s design, construction and occupation, with clear competence requirements to maintain high standards.

○ Giving residents a stronger voice in the system, ensuring their concerns are never ignored and they fully understand how they can contribute to maintaining safety in their buildings.

○ Strengthening enforcement and sanctions to deter non-compliance with the new regime, hold the right people to account when mistakes are made and ensure they are not repeated.

○ Developing a new stronger and clearer framework to provide national oversight of construction products, to ensure all products meet high performance standards.

○ Developing a new system to oversee the whole built environment, with local enforcement agencies and national regulators working together to ensure that the safety of all buildings is improved.

● We will also legislate to require that developers of new build homes must belong to a New Homes Ombudsman.

Fire Safety Bill (pages 54 to 55):

“New measures will be brought forward…to improve building safety.”

● Clarifying that the scope of the Fire Safety Order includes the external walls of the building, including cladding, and fire doors for domestic premises of multiple occupancy.

● Strengthening the relevant enforcement powers to hold building owners and managers to account.

● Providing a transitional period for building owners and managers (the “responsible person”) and Fire and Rescue Services to put in place the infrastructure for these changes.”

National Infrastructure Strategy (pages 90 to 91):

“My government will prioritise investment in infrastructure…”

● The National Infrastructure Strategy will be published alongside the first Budget, and will set out further details of the Government’s plan to invest £100 billion to transform the UK’s infrastructure.

● The Strategy will set out the Government’s long-term ambitions across all areas of economic infrastructure including transport, local growth, decarbonisation, digital infrastructure, infrastructure finance and delivery.

● The Strategy will have two key aims:

○ To unleash Britain’s potential by levelling up and connecting every part of the country. Prosperity will be shared across all of the UK, and long- standing economic challenges addressed, through responsible and prudent investment in the infrastructure.

○ To address the critical challenges posed by climate change and build on the UK’s world-leading commitment to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.

● The Strategy will also provide the Government’s formal response to the National Infrastructure Commission’s 2018 National Infrastructure Assessment, which made a series of independent recommendations to government across all sectors of economic infrastructure (transport, energy, digital, waste, water and flood management).”

Rail reform and High Speed Rail 2 (West Midlands – Crewe) Bill (pages 101 to 103)

● Last year the Government launched a ‘root and branch’ review of the railways led by Keith Williams. The Review is the first comprehensive assessment of the rail system in a generation and is tasked with making ambitious proposals to reform the rail industry.

● The Review is focused on reforms that will put passengers at the heart of the railway, provide value for taxpayers and deliver economic, social and environmental benefits across Britain.

● The Government will publish a White Paper informed by the recommendations next year. Among other things, this will end the complicated franchising model to create a simpler, more effective system.

● The Government has also committed to a number of major investments in the railway, including:

o Midlands Rail Hub, to improve services around Birmingham and throughout the West and East Midlands;

o Northern Powerhouse Rail;

o Reopening a number of the lines and stations closed under the

Beeching cuts in the 1960s; and,

o Significant upgrades to urban commuter and regional services outside London.

● Separate to the wider review of the railway system, the Government awaits the review, of the High Speed Two (HS2) network led by Doug Oakervee which is looking at whether and how to proceed with HS2, including the benefits and impacts; affordability and efficiency; deliverability; and scope and phasing, including its relationship with Northern Powerhouse Rail.

● Without prejudice to the Oakervee Review’s findings and any Government decisions that follow, it is expected that the High Speed Rail (West Midlands – Crewe) Bill will be revived in this Parliament. The Bill was first introduced in Parliament in July 2017 and will enable Phase 2a of HS2. The Bill passed through the House of Commons and had completed Second Reading in the House of Lords before the dissolution of the previous Parliament. Following revival it would begin its next stages in the House of Lords.

English Devolution (pages 109 to 110):

“My government…will give communities more control over how investment is spent so that they can decide what is best for them.”

● We are committed to levelling up powers and investment in the regions across England and allowing each part of the country to decide its own destiny.

● This means proposals to transform this country with better infrastructure, better education, and better technology.

● We will publish a White Paper setting out our strategy to unleash the potential of our regions, which will include plans for spending and local growth funding.

● It will provide further information on our plans for full devolution across England, levelling up powers between Mayoral Combined Authorities, increasing the number of mayors and doing more devolution deals.

● These increased powers and funding will mean more local democratic responsibility and accountability.

● We remain committed to the Northern Powerhouse, Midlands Engine, and Western Gateway strategies.

Business rates (page 111):

“To support business, my government will…bring forward changes to business rates.”

● The Government is committed to conducting a fundamental review of business rates.

● The Government recognises the role of business rates as a source of local authority income and will consider input from the sector as part of the review of business rates. Further details on the review will be announced.

● We are committed to increasing the retail discount from one-third to 50 per cent, extending that discount to cinemas and music venues, extending the duration of the local newspapers discount, and introducing an additional discount for pubs.

● We will also progress legislation to bring forward the next business rates revaluation by one year from 2022 to 2021 and move business rates revaluations from a five-yearly cycle to a three-yearly cycle. This will allow the Government to press ahead with delivering an important reform that has been strongly welcomed by business.

● More frequent revaluations will ensure that business rates bills are more up- to-date reflecting properties’ current rental values. Moving to three-yearly revaluation will make the system more responsive to changing economic conditions.

Environment Bill (pages 112 to 114):

“To protect and improve the environment for future generations, a bill will enshrine in law environmental principles and legally-binding targets, including for air quality. It will also ban the export of polluting plastic waste to countries outside the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and establish a new, world-leading independent regulator in statute.”

● Establishing new long term domestic environmental governance based on: environmental principles; a comprehensive framework for legally-binding targets, a long term plan to deliver environmental improvements; and the new Office for Environmental Protection.

● Improving air quality by setting an ambitious legally-binding target to reduce fine particulate matter (PM2.5), the most damaging pollutant to human health. The Bill also increases local powers to address sources of air pollution and brings forward powers for the Government to mandate recalls of vehicles when they do not meet legal emission standards.

● Protecting nature by mandating ‘biodiversity net gain’ into the planning system, ensuring new houses aren’t built at the expense of nature and delivering thriving natural spaces for communities. We will improve protection for our natural habitats through Local Nature Recovery Strategies and give communities a greater say in the protection of local trees.

● Preserving our resources by minimising waste, promoting resource efficiency and moving towards a circular economy. These measures include extended producer responsibility, a consistent approach to recycling, tackling waste crime, introducing deposit return schemes, and more effective litter enforcement. We will also ban the export of polluting plastic waste to non- OECD countries, consulting with industry, NGOs, and local councils on the date by which this should be achieved.

● Introducing charges for specified single use plastic items. This will build on the success of the carrier bag charge and incentivise consumers to choose more sustainable alternatives.

● Managing water sustainably through more effective legislation to secure long- term, resilient water and wastewater services. This will include powers to direct water companies to work together to meet current and future demand for water, making planning more robust, and ensuring we are better able to maintain water supplies.

Climate change (pages 115 to 118):

“My government will continue to take steps to meet the world-leading target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. It will continue to lead the way in tackling global climate change, hosting the COP26 Summit in 2020.”

● We will build on our progress with an ambitious programme of policy and investment, with our first Budget prioritising the environment. This will help deliver the green infrastructure needed to improve lives and achieve Net Zero, including by investing in carbon capture, offshore wind, nuclear energy, and electric vehicle infrastructure so that individuals are always within 30 miles of a chargepoint. We will make sure we help lower energy bills investing in the energy efficiency of homes, schools and hospitals. And away from home, we will use our £1 billion Ayrton Fund to develop affordable clean energy for developing countries.

● The government will continue to use our position as a global leader in this area by hosting the UN Climate Change Summit in Glasgow in 2020 (COP26). We will ask our partners to match the UK’s ambition.

● With a focus on nature based solutions at our upcoming COP summit, at home we will be substantially increasing our tree-planting commitment and creating a £640 million new Nature for Climate fund.

● Our natural environment is one of our greatest assets, and can play a crucial role in the fight against climate change. This government will:

○ introduce a landmark Environment Bill – the first one in twenty years – that will create an ambitious environmental governance framework for post Brexit, as well as banning the export of plastic waste to non-OECD countries;

○ establish a new £500 million Blue Planet Fund to help protect our oceans from plastic pollution, warming sea temperatures and overfishing;

○ lead diplomatic efforts to protect 30 per cent of the world’s oceans by 2030; and,

○ in our trade negotiations, never compromise on our high environmental protection

● We will also ensure that we are protecting our citizens by investing £4 billion in flood defences and lowering energy bills by investing £9.2 billion in the energy efficiency of homes, schools and hospitals.

● We will increase our ambition on offshore wind to 40GW by 2030, and enable new floating turbines.

● We will support decarbonisation of industry and power by investing £800 million to build the first fully deployed carbon capture storage cluster by the mid-2020s; and £500 million to help energy-intensive industries move to low-carbon techniques.

Constitution and democracy (pages 126 to 127):

“A Constitution, Democracy and Rights Commission will be established. Work will be taken forward to repeal the Fixed-term Parliaments Act.”

Setting up a Constitution, Democracy & Rights Commission that will:

● Examine the broader aspects of the constitution in depth and develop proposals to restore trust in our institutions and in how our democracy operates. Careful consideration is needed on the composition and focus of the Commission. Further announcements shall be made in due course.

It’s a blue, blue, blue, blue Christmas.

The usual askew perspectives and commentary will continue here in 2020.

Simon Ricketts, 21 December 2019

Personal views, et cetera

Clean Air: Promises, Promises

Lindblom LJ gave a short speech this week at drinks hosted by Cornerstone Barristers to mark the publication of Ashley Bowes’ A Practical Approach To Planning Law 14th edition. He made a nice joke about how many of the footnote references were to articles by one Dr Ashley Bowes.

No doubt Lindblom LJ’s judgment in Gladman Developments Limited v Secretary of State (Court of Appeal, 12 September 2019), where Ashley appeared for the successful third respondent, CPRE Kent, will now get a good airing in the 15th edition.

The case is an important addition to the growing jurisprudence in relation to the relevance of air quality issues to decision making on planning applications and appeals – and indeed is of wider relevance.

I last summarised the case law, as it was then, in my 2 February 2019 blog post What To Do About Poor Air Quality? The Shirley Case, supplemented by references to the High Court’s rulings in the Heathrow cases in my 4 May 2019 blog post Lessons From The Heathrow Cases.

In Gladman the developer had challenged an inspector’s decision letter which had dismissed its appeal in relation to a proposed residential and extra care development at Pond Farm, Newington, near Sittingbourne. The challenge was to the inspector’s conclusion as to the “effect of the appeal proposals, including any proposed mitigation measures, on air quality, particularly in the Newington and Rainham Air Quality Management Areas”.

The claim was rejected at first instance. The grounds of appeal raised “three broad issues: first, whether the inspector erred in failing to grasp the significance of Garnham J.’s decision in the ClientEarth proceedings, and the policy in paragraph 122 of the NPPF (grounds 1 and 2); second, whether he failed to deal properly with the proposed mitigation, whether he should have considered a condition preventing the development going ahead until effective mitigation had been secured, and whether his decision is vitiated by procedural unfairness (grounds 3, 4 and 5); and third, whether he failed properly to explain how Gladman’s approach to mitigation departed from the air quality action plans (ground 6).”

Or, perhaps, more plainly: was the inspector more sceptical than was legally permissible as to whether national air quality targets will be met and as to whether the developer’s proposed mitigation measures would be effective?

National air quality targets

Garnham J in the ClientEarth proceedings had ordered that the Secretary of State publish a modified air quality plan and aim to achieve compliance with the Air Quality Directive by the soonest date possible, must choose a route to that objective which reduces exposure to non-compliant air quality levels as quickly as possible and must take steps which mean that meeting the value limits is not just possible but is likely.

The inspector considered the air quality improvement objectives within Swale Borough Council’s action plans for the two relevant air quality management areas. He thought it “optimistic… to expect that NO2 concentrations will fall by the amount” predicted by Gladman in a “without development” scenario.

“The sensitivity scenarios are probably too pessimistic: as the appellants’ witness pointed out, tightening of emission standards for new vehicles should, over time, bring about substantial further reductions in NO2 emissions from traffic. But I was given no firm data on the rate at which this is likely to occur. In the absence of any conclusive evidence on this point, I consider it would be unsafe to rely on emission levels falling between 2015 and 2020 to the extent that informed the modelling of original Scenarios 2 to 5. My view is reinforced by the High Court’s finding on the excessive optimism of future emissions modelling. This means that original Scenarios 3 and 5 cannot be taken as reliable projections of the likely impacts of the appeal proposals on air quality.”

The judge at first instance did not accept Gladman’s submissions that this approach by the inspector was unlawful in that he did not take into account the extent of the duty on the Secretary of State to secure that air quality value limits were likely to be met as soon as possible. The inspector “was not required to assume that local air quality would improve by any particular amount within any particular timeframe”. The Court of Appeal agreed:

“It was not known what measures the new draft national air quality plan would contain, let alone what the final version would contain following public consultation. The inspector did not know how any new national measures would relate to local measures, nor what would be “the soonest date possible” by which the new national air quality plan would aim to achieve compliance. He could not reach any view on whether the measures in the new national air quality plan were likely to be effective in securing compliance by any particular date (paragraph 31 of the judgment). In the judge’s view, the inspector had “properly engaged with the ClientEarth (No.2) decision”; had “understood what the judgment required”; had “carefully analysed the evidence that was presented before him (DL 99-106)”; had “formed a judgment as to what the air quality is likely to be in the future on the basis of that evidence”; and was “entitled to consider the evidence and not simply assume that the UK will soon become compliant with [the Air Quality Directive]” (paragraph 32).

I can see no error in any of those conclusions of the judge. In my view, as was submitted to us by Mr Richard Moules on behalf of the Secretary of State and Dr Ashley Bowes for CPRE Kent, the inspector did see the true significance and effect of Garnham J.’s judgment in ClientEarth (No.2). In deciding Gladman’s appeals, he had to consider the evidence before him, in the particular circumstances of the local area, including local air quality. That is plainly what he did. He was not obliged to embark on predictive judgments about the timing and likely effectiveness of the Government’s response to the decision in ClientEarth (No.2), and the requirement to produce a national air quality plan compliant with the Air Quality Directive.”

“It was not within the inspector’s duty as decision-maker to resolve the “tension”, as Mr Kimblin put it, between the Government’s responsibility to comply swiftly with the limit values for air pollutants and the remaining uncertainty over the means by which, and when, the relevant targets would be met. In different circumstances, and on different evidence, an inspector might be able to assess the impact of a particular development on local air quality by taking into account the content of a national air quality plan, compliant with the Air Quality Directive, which puts specific measures in place and thus enables a clear conclusion to be reached on the effect of those measures. But that was not so here.”

The Court of Appeal also held that Supperstone J at first instance was right to reject the submission that “the inspector failed to apply the principle that the planning system assumes other schemes of regulatory control will operate effectively. This policy, in his view, was directed at a situation where there is a parallel system of control…, the essential principle being that the planning system should not duplicate those other regulatory controls, but should generally assume they will operate effectively. As the judge saw it, the Air Quality Directive was “not a parallel consenting regime to which paragraph 122 is directed”. There was “no separate licensing or permitting decision that will address the specific air quality impacts of [Gladman’s] proposed development.”

“As Mr Moules and Dr Bowes submitted, the Air Quality Directive and the 2010 regulations are not a licensing or permitting regime of that kind. The Air Quality Directive is “programmatic in nature”. It imposes obligations on the state to comply with the relevant limit values within the shortest possible time, and by the means chosen to achieve compliance. In the United Kingdom the approach adopted by the Government is to promulgate an air quality plan for the relevant zones or agglomerations. Paragraph 122 of the NPPF, properly understood, did not contemplate any assumption being made about that process. It does not require a planning decision-maker to assume that the Government will have acted expeditiously to take the action required to discharge its own responsibilities under the legislative scheme for air quality.”

Proposed mitigation measures

Gladman submitted that “the inspector, in finding Gladman’s financial contribution to mitigation was unlikely to be effective, failed to grapple properly with its approach to mitigation, which was based on DEFRA’s “damage cost analysis”.”

The first instance judgment goes into more detail as to the mitigation measures. They amounted to a financial contribution of £311,018.80. There was no detail as to how the money was to be effectively spent.

The judge at first instance referred to Gladman’s expert witness’s own acknowledgement as to “the difficulty in predicting the effectiveness of the mitigation. The likely effectiveness of that mitigation was a “live issue” at the inquiry. The inspector had to reach his own conclusion on the matter, exercising his planning judgment – as did the Secretary of State in Shirley and the inspector in Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government v Wealden District Council [2017] EWCA Civ 39 (paragraph 50 of the judgment). In paragraphs 104 to 106 of his decision letter he had reached a conclusion on the evidence that he was entitled to reach, and he had explained what was wrong with the proposed mitigation. As the judge put it, the “contributions had not been shown to translate into actual measures likely to reduce the use of private petrol and diesel vehicles and hence reduce the forecast NO2 emissions …””

The Court of Appeal agreed:

“It was not the methodology that was in contention. It was the likely effectiveness of the financial contributions themselves when translated into practical measures. The thrust of the objection by CPRE Kent, which the inspector accepted, was that it could not be demonstrated that the financial contributions would produce practical mitigation sufficient to overcome the likely effects of the development on local air quality.

This was a classic matter of planning judgment. The inspector did not have to accept that because an appropriate arithmetical method had been used in calculating the level of financial contributions, the mitigation measures themselves would be effective. It was for him to consider, in the exercise of his planning judgment, whether the mitigation would be effective. He was not confident that it would. Disagreement with this conclusion is not a proper basis for complaint in proceedings such as these.”

Lastly, should the inspector have imposed a Grampian-style condition of his own volition, to address his concerns, rather than simply dismiss the appeal?

The Court of Appeal disagreed:

“There is no statutory requirement, or principle of law, to the effect that in determining an appeal under section 78 of the 1990 Act, the Secretary of State, or his inspector, must always – and even if entirely unprompted by any of the parties – seek to make an unacceptable proposal acceptable by imposing a planning condition in “Grampian” form to prevent the development going ahead until a particular objection to it is overcome.

Nor is there any statement of national planning policy creating such a requirement.”

Concluding remarks

An interesting case, the relevance of which goes beyond air quality matters:

⁃ a decision maker, in determining what is the baseline position, is not required to assume that targets in Government policy will actually be met.

⁃ a decision maker can of course decide not to have regard to proposed mitigation measures if the decision maker is not confident that they will achieve their intended objective.

Finally, a procedural point. CPRE Kent had been a rule 6 party at the inquiry. They chose to become an interested party in the litigation, given their particular interest in the issues and, quite possibly, a concern that the Secretary of State might not hold the position in terms of validity of the inspector’s approach (after all, the local planning authority was not represented at either stage of the proceedings). It’s a brave step for an NGO – unlikely to recover its costs for participating and indeed at risk of an adverse costs award in some circumstances – but no doubt here vindicated.

Simon Ricketts, 22 September 2019

Personal views, et cetera

Lindblom LJ & (in written form) Ashley Bowes

Lessons From The Heathrow Cases

In my 15 October 2016 blog post Airports & Courts I made the obvious prediction that publication by the Secretary of State for Transport of the Airports National Policy Statement (“ANPS”) would inevitably lead to litigation. The ANPS is important because under the Planning Act 2008 it sets the policy basis for a third runway at Heathrow to the north west of the current runways (the “NWR Scheme”).

It was always going to be important for the High Court to be able to rise to the (in a non-legal sense) administrative challenge of disposing of claims efficiently and fairly. The purpose of this blog post is to look at how that was achieved (no easy feat) and what we can learn more generally from the court’s approach to the litigation

The ANPS was designated on 26 June 2018 and five claims were brought seeking to challenge that decision:

⁃ A litigant in person, Neil Spurrier (a solicitor who is a member of the Teddington Action Group)

⁃ A group comprising the London Borough of Richmond-upon-Thames, the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, Greenpeace and the Mayor of London

⁃ Friends of the Earth

⁃ Plan B Earth

⁃ Heathrow Hub Limited and Runway Innovations Limited [unlike the other claimants above, these claimants argue for an extension of the current northern runway so that it can effectively operate as two separate runways. This scheme was known as the Extended Northern Runway Scheme (“the ENR Scheme”)]

Arora Holdings Limited joined as an interested party to each set of proceedings in pursuance of their case for a consolidated terminal facility to the west of the airport.

The Speaker for the House of Commons intervened in the Heathrow Hub Limited claim to object to various statements made to Parliament and Parliamentary Committees being admitted in evidence.

The first four claims raised 22 separate grounds of challenge. The fifth claim raised a further five grounds of challenge.

As Planning Liaison Judge, ie effectively lead judge within the Planning Court, Holgate J in my view has played an extremely effective role. Following a directions hearing, ahead of a subsequent pre-trial review three months later, he laid down a comprehensive set of directions on 4 October 2018 which provided for:

⁃ the first four claims to be heard at a single rolled up hearing, followed by the fifth claim

⁃ the cases to be heard by a Divisional Court (ie two or more judges, normally a High Court Judge and a Lord Justice of Appeal. In the event, the four claims were heard by a Divisional Court comprising Hickinbottom LJ and Holgate J. The fifth claim was heard immediately afterwards by a Divisional Court comprising Hickinbottom LJ, and Holgate and Marcus Smith JJ.)

⁃ video link to a second court room and (paid for jointly by the parties in agreed proportions) live searchable transcripts of each day’s proceedings

⁃ procedure to be followed in relation to expert evidence sought to be submitted in support of the first claim

⁃ statements of common ground

⁃ amended grounds of claim, with strict page limits and against the background of a request from the judge to “review the extent to which they consider that any legal grounds of challenge previously relied upon remain properly arguable in the light of the Acknowledgments of Service“, and with specific claimants leading on individual issues

⁃ bundles and skeleton arguments complying with strict page limits and other requirements

⁃ payment of security for costs by Heathrow Hub Limited in the sum of £250,000

⁃ cost capping in the other claims on Aarhus Convention principles

The main proceedings were heard over seven days in March, with the Heathrow Hub proceedings then taking a further three days (followed by written submissions). As directed by Holgate J, hearing transcripts were made publicly available.

Less than six weeks after close of the Heathrow Hub hearing, judgment was handed on 1 May 2019 in both case:

R (Spurrier & others) v Secretary of State (Divisional Court, 1 May 2019)

R (Heathrow Hub Limited & Runway Innovations Limited) v Secretary of State (Divisional Court, 1 May 2019)

The transcript of the first judgment runs to 184 pages and the transcript of the second judgment runs to 72 pages.

I am not going to summarise the judgments in this blog post but happily there is no need as the court at the same time issued a summary, which serves as a helpful précis of the claims and the court’s reasoning for rejecting each of them.

The Divisional Court found that all but six grounds were unarguable (the six being two Habitats Directive grounds from the first case, two SEA grounds from the first case and two from the second case (legitimate expectation and anti-competition). “All the other grounds were not considered not to have been arguable: the claimants may apply for permission to appeal against the Divisional Court’s decision concerning those grounds to the Court of Appeal within 7 days. The remaining six grounds were ultimately dismissed. The claimants may apply to the Divisional Court for permission to appeal within 7 days. If the Divisional Court refuses permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal, the claimants may re-apply directly to the Court of Appeal.”

The Secretary of State for Transport gave a written statement in the House of Commons on the same day, welcoming the judgments.

The two judgments will be essential reading in due course for all involved in similar challenges; the 29 grounds, and various additional preliminary points, cover a wide range of issues frequently raised in these sorts of cases and each is carefully dealt with, with some useful textbook style analysis.

In the Spurrier judgment:

– the scope for challenge of an NPS (paras 86 to 90)

⁃ relationship between the NPS and DCO process (paras 91 to 112)

⁃ extent of duty to give reasons for the policy set out in the NPS (paras 113 to 123)

⁃ consultation requirements in relation to preparation of an NPS (paras 124 to 140)

⁃ standard of review in relation to each of the grounds of challenge (paras 141 to 184)

⁃ the limited circumstances in which expert evidence is admissible in judicial review (paras 174 to 179)

⁃ whether updated information should have been taken into account (paras 201 to 209)

⁃ whether mode share targets were taken into account that were not realistically capable of being delivered (paras 210 to 219)

⁃ the relevance of the Air Quality Directive for the Secretary of State’s decision making (paras 220 to 285)

⁃ compliance with the Habitats Directive (paras 286 to 373)

⁃ compliance with the Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive (paras 374 to 502)

⁃ whether consultation was carried out with an open mind (paras 503 to 552)

⁃ whether the decision to designate the ANPS was tainted by bias (paras 553 to 557)

⁃ the relevance of the Government’s commitments to combat climate change (paras 558 to 660)

⁃ whether there was a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights (paras 661 to 665)

In the Heathrow Hub judgment:

⁃ legitimate expectation (paras 113 to 138)

⁃ use of Parliamentary material in the context of Article 9 of the Bill of Rights (paras 139 to 152)

⁃ competition law (paras 157 to 209).

As we wait to see whether any of these claims go further, I note that Arora has commenced pre application consultation ahead of submitting a draft DCO for a “consolidated terminal facility to the west of the airport, which we are calling Heathrow West, related infrastructure and changes to the nearby road and river network.” Now that is going to be another interesting story in due course. I’m not sure we have previously seen duelling DCOs…

Simon Ricketts, 4 May 2019

Personal views, et cetera

What To Do About Poor Air Quality? The Shirley Case

In this week of all Brexit weeks it was interesting to see the approach of the Court of Appeal in a case, R (Shirley) v Secretary of State (Court of Appeal, 25 January 2019), which turned on the practical extent of the Secretary of State’s duty to give effect to the objectives of the Air Quality Directive. The UK is under binding commitments in the Air Quality Directive to improve air quality, transposed into domestic law by way of the Air Quality Standards Regulations 2010. Was he required to call in for his own determination a planning application for development that would worsen or prolong breaches of limit values in an Air Quality Management Area (“AQMA”) for nitrogen dioxide or PM10?

Before we turn to the ruling, a quick update may be useful on the continuing saga of the Government’s continued failure to prepare a lawful Air Quality Plan in compliance with its duties under the Air Quality Directive (its deadline having been 1 January 2010) since my 4 November 2016 blog post The UK Government & Air Quality (ahem). At the point I wrote the blog post, the Supreme Court had ordered in April 2015 that the Government should prepare a legally compliant Air Quality Plan by the end of 2015, the Government had purported to publish compliant proposals on 17 December 2015 which were then found to be legally inadequate by Garnham J in his judgment in ClientEarth v Secretary of State (No. 2) (Garnham J, 2 November 2016). He gave the Government a further deadline of 31 July 2017.

The Government purported to comply by that deadline but Garnham J held that attempt too was deficient in a number of respects, in R (ClientEarth) v Secretary of State (No. 3) (Garnham J, 21 February 2018). He made a declaration as to the deficiencies as against the requirements of the Directive and Regulations, ordered the urgent production of a supplement to rectify the deficiencies and that the balance of the plan should remain in force in the meantime to avoid any delay in its implementation. His judgment concluded:

“I end this judgment where I began, by considering the history and significance of this litigation. It is now eight years since compliance with the 2008 Directive should have been achieved. This is the third, unsuccessful, attempt the Government has made at devising an AQP which complies with the Directive and the domestic Regulations. Each successful challenge has been mounted by a small charity, for which the costs of such litigation constitute a significant challenge. In the meanwhile, UK citizens have been exposed to significant health risks.

It seems to me that the time has come for the Court to consider exercising a more flexible supervisory jurisdiction in this case than is commonplace. Such an application was made to me when the November 2016 judgment was handed down. I refused it on that occasion, opting for a more conventional form of order. Given present circumstances, however, I would invite submissions from all parties, both in writing and orally, as to whether it would be appropriate for the Court to grant a continuing liberty to apply, so that the Claimant can bring the matter back before the court, in the present proceedings, if there is evidence that either Defendant is falling short in its compliance with the terms of the order of the Court”.

The Government published a supplement to its plan on 5 October 2018 and as far as I know there has been no legal challenge to it or application back to Garnham J pursuant to his liberty to apply. So we may finally now have a legally compliant Air Quality Plan?

In the meantime, the European Commission has commenced infringement proceedings against the UK and other member states for delays in implementing the Directive.

To bring the narrative right up to date, the Government published its Clean Air Strategy on 14 January 2019, setting out proposed measures that will in due course form part of the forthcoming Environment Bill. On an initial reading there seems to be a deliberate shift away from the areas where the Government has found it difficult to comply with the Air Quality Directive, particularly in relation to polluting emissions from vehicles. From the foreword by Michael Gove:

“We often think of air pollution as a problem caused by road transport and industrial level burning of fossil fuels. These are two of the central sources of pollution, but industry and government have worked together to remedy many of the worst problems by incentivising the use of clean fuels and investing in new technology. We have already secured a significant reduction in emissions since the 1970s. But now this trajectory has slowed.

Now we need to tackle other sources of air pollutants that damage human health and the environment. Air pollution can be caused by intensive agricultural food production, heating our homes or even cleaning with certain solvents”

Whether that is well based is for others to judge.

But perhaps more of that another day and now back to Shirley. The appeal before the Court of Appeal concerned an application by Corinthian Mountfield Limited for planning permission for 4,000 dwellings and associated development that had been resolved to be approved by Canterbury Borough Council.

Dove J had rejected the appellants’ claim for judicial review of the Secretary of State’s decision not to call in the application. The Court of Appeal considered three grounds of appeal:

“(1) whether the preparation and implementation of an air quality plan complying with Article 23 of the Air Quality Directive would be a sufficient response to breaches of limit values (ground 1 in the appellant’s notice);

(2) whether the Secretary of State had a duty as “competent authority” to use his planning powers to avoid the worsening or prolongation of breaches of the limit values, and was therefore obliged to call in Corinthian Mountfield’s application for planning permission (ground 2); and

(3) whether it was irrational for the Secretary of State to assume that any errors in the city council’s approach could be put right if it reconsidered the application, or could be brought before the court in a claim for judicial review if planning permission were granted (ground 3).”

The point is an important practical one – if a project is likely to increase exceedances of pollutant limit values, does that by itself lead to the risk of call in or legal challenge?

“Is the preparation and implementation of an air quality plan complying with article 23 of the Air Quality Directive a sufficient response to breaches of limit values?

Article 13 of the Directive, transposed by Regulation 17 of the Regulations, requires the Secretary of State to ensure that levels of specified pollutants do not exceed defined limit values. In zones where levels are below the limit values the Secretary of State must “ensure that levels are maintained below those limit values and must endeavour to maintain the best ambient air quality compatible with sustainable development“.

Article 23 of the Directive, transposed by Regulation 26 of the Regulations, requires that where exceedances of annual mean limit values of specified pollutants occur, the Secretary of State must draw up and implement an air quality plan to achieve the limit value.

Dove J had “concluded that when the limit values in the Air Quality Directive are exceeded, if article 13 is read with articles 22 and 23, the preparation and implementation of an air quality plan with a view to overcoming those exceedances and keeping their duration as short as possible is the “specific and bespoke remedy”. There was, he said, “no room within the scheme” of the Air Quality Directive for any “freestanding responsibility” to take any specific action on “permits” or “development consents”. He was “unable to read into the legislation any requirement to take particular actions in relation to permits or development consents”.

“For the appellants, Mr Robert McCracken Q.C. submitted that the judge had erred in his understanding of the Air Quality Directive and the 2010 regulations. He had failed to adopt a suitably purposive approach, failed to recognize the high level of environmental protection required by EU law, and failed to follow the approach taken by the Court of Justice of the European Union in relevant authority. He had not grasped that the Air Quality Directive requires the taking of action, not merely the preparation of air quality plans, and that the adoption and implementation of an air quality plan is a necessary but not a sufficient response to breaches of limit values…”

As referred to in my 4 November 2016 blog post, this has been Robert McCracken QC’s position for a long time – indeed in my blog post I included a link to his 2015 legal opinion to that effect.

Lindblom LJ examines in detail the Court of Justice of the European Union case law before agreeing with Dove J and rejecting the “purposive approach” argument:

“Dove J.’s description of article 23 as providing the “specific and bespoke remedy” for a breach of article 13 therefore seems apt. This does not mean that Member States may not also adopt other measures to address a breach of article 13, in addition to preparing and putting into effect an air quality plan complying with article 23. But nor does it mean that Member States are compelled by any provision of the Air Quality Directive to do that. A demonstrable breach of article 13 does not generate some unspecified obligation beyond the preparation and implementation of an air quality plan that complies with article 23. The case law does not suggest, for example, that in such circumstances a Member State must ensure that land use planning powers and duties are exercised in a particular way – such as by imposing a moratorium on grants of planning permission for particular forms of development, or for development of a particular scale, whose effect might be to perpetuate or increase exceedances of limit values, or by ensuring that decisions on such proposals are taken only at ministerial level“.

Did the Secretary of State have a duty as “competent authority” to use his planning powers to avoid the worsening or prolongation of breaches of limit values?

Again, the answer was no:

“I cannot accept that argument. It finds no support in relevant case law. In my view, as Mr Maurici and Mr Pereira submitted, it is not possible to construe the provisions of the Air Quality Directive and the 2010 regulations as constraining the Secretary of State’s very wide discretion either to call in or not to call in an application for planning permission when the limit values under article 13 have not been complied with, or when an air quality plan under article 23 has not yet been put in place or has proved to be deficient or ineffective. The air quality legislation does not do that. It does not have the effect of narrowing the Secretary of State’s call-in discretion in such circumstances, let alone of transforming that discretion into a duty, or of requiring a particular application for planning permission to be refused. None of the provisions of the Air Quality Directive engages with the process of making decisions to authorize individual projects of development. If a proposed development would cause a limit value to be breached, or delay the remediation of such a breach, or worsen air quality in a particular area, neither the Air Quality Directive nor the 2010 regulations states that planning permission must be withheld or granted only subject to particular conditions. These may of course be material considerations when an application or appeal is decided, and so too the measures in an air quality plan for the relevant zone, if there is one, or in an action plan prepared under the Environment Act 1995. But the Air Quality Directive and the 2010 regulations do not, in those or any other circumstances, compel the decision-maker to refuse planning permission, or impose on the Secretary of State an obligation to make the decision himself.”

Was the Secretary of State’s decision not to call in the application irrational?

Given that planning permission had not yet been granted by the city council, it was open to the council to take the application back to committee if it was not called in.

Lindblom LJ held that the Secretary of State’s freedom to exercise his call-in discretion is considerable. “The Secretary of State also knew that if he did not call in the application, the city council would be able to consider it again, taking account of any further representations made to it, and, with the advice of its officers and professional consultants, revisiting the committee’s resolution to grant planning permission. And if planning permission were to be granted, it could be challenged by a claim for judicial review. It was not perverse for the Secretary of State to have these considerations in mind when he made his decision not to call in.”

Lastly, the Court of Appeal considered and rejected for four reasons the appellants’ submission that a reference should be made on the first ground of appeal to the Court of Justice of the European Union:

⁃ the appeal failed in any event on the other grounds so a decision on the questions in the reference would not be necessary to enable this court to give judgment;

⁃ the issue was in the court’s view “acte clair” (ie reasonably clear and free from doubt)

⁃ a reference would cause unjustifiable delay in a case where the decision under challenge was procedural, not substantive

⁃ a reference was opposed by all four respondents.

Concluding thoughts

The case is an interesting example of the way in which EU law has become so familiar to the lawyers and judges of our domestic courts. Nearly all of our environmental law is EU-derived. Post-Brexit, when EU-derived legislation such as the Air Quality Standards Regulations will continue to apply (unless and until amended or revoked) on a free-standing basis and without the backing of the Directive, it is inconceivable to imagine that we will not all in practice still draw upon the CJEU’s case law to assist in matters of interpretation.

Over time this may change, once our legislation starts to diverge with that of the EU (we see already the deliberately differing objectives and approaches of DEFRA’s Clean Air Strategy) and once differing strands of judicial interpretation start slowly to open up. It’s going to get complicated. Our judges will always be more resistant to the purposive approach to interpretation – legislation should mean what it says – which is why in our common law system it is so important that our laws are precise rather than broad statements of principle in the way that has led to so much litigation in relation to EU Directives.

The case also illustrates the scale of the hurdles to be cleared in persuading our courts to refer issues to the Court of Justice of the European Union. If there had been a reference in Shirley, could we have completely ruled out the prospect of a surprise finding, à la People Over Wind? I’m still grumbling, five years on, about the Supreme Court’s refusal in the HS2 Action Alliance case to refer the Strategic Environmental Assessment issues that we raised to the CJEU. The risk/prospect of referral is generally a low one.

The earlier ClientEarth sequence of cases (within which there was in fact a reference) raises the separate question as to whether it is sufficient for responsibility for compliance with environmental targets to remain with Parliament and whether the proposed Office for Environmental Protection would have sufficient power as against a future Government that is dragging its heels. Would the OEP be able to fulfil that supervisory role that Garnham J has had to take in the ClientEarth litigation?

But in the meantime, it is helpful to have the Court of Appeal’s clarification that non-compliance by the Government with its international responsibilities does not lead to what would effectively been an embargo on any form of development where it could be argued that there might be an adverse effect on air quality in an AQMA, regardless of the local improvement measures to which the relevant local authorities had committed under the Directive and Regulations, and regardless of the usual statutory requirement for decision makers to determine applications in accordance with the development plan unless material considerations indicate otherwise. It would have led to decision-making chaos.

But that shouldn’t let anyone off the hook. The onus really must continue to rest with the Government and local authorities to take the necessary steps to ensure that roadside emissions are reduced to acceptable levels, no matter how politically unpopular the implications (eg further charging zones, making it more expensive and less convenient to use a polluting vehicle and the reverse for users of public transport – and priority being given to pedestrians and cyclists in our cities). The onus must also rest with developers to seek to ensure that their proposals are, in the language of the draft London Plan, air quality neutral or positive.

Clean air may be invisible but surely, one day, it will be seen as a vote winner?

Simon Ricketts, 2 February 2019

Personal views, et cetera

In A Cycle Superhighway In The Sky

The high ambition on the part of successive London Mayors since 2008 to create a network of (mostly) segregated cycleways across London has often been controversial and often impeded due to differences arising with individual boroughs.

Cyclists, please put me right if I have got any of this this wrong but I think there are now eight operational routes:

CS1 – Tottenham to the City

CS2 – Aldgate to Stratford

CS3 – Barking to Tower Gateway

CS3 (East-West) – Lancaster to Tower Hill

CS5 – Oval to Pimlico

CS6 – North-South – Farringdon to Kings Cross (Consultation started on 20 September 2018 on an extension to CS6 between Farringdon and King’s Cross, so that it will run from Elephant & Castle all the way up to King’s Cross.)

CS7 – Merton to the City

CS8 – Wandsworth to Westminster

Further routes have been long planned but are not yet open:

CS4 – London Bridge to Woolwich

CS9 – Hyde Park to Hounslow

CS10 – Cricklewood to Marble Arch

CS11 – West Hampstead to Hyde Park Corner

For more detail see London Cycling Campaign’s website.

The Mayor announced on 30 January 2018 that design work would begin on six new routes, namely:

• Lea Bridge to Dalston – 3km route between Lea Bridge Road and Cycle Superhighway 1 at Dalston.

• Ilford to Barking Riverside – 8km route between the town centres of Ilford and Barking.

• Hackney to the Isle of Dogs – 8km route from Hackney to the Isle of Dogs via Canary Wharf, Mile End and Victoria Park.

• Rotherhithe to Peckham – 4km route to connect with connect other cycling routes such as Quietway 1 and the proposed Cycle Superhighway 4.

• Tottenham Hale to Camden – 8km route covering seven junctions identified as being among the 73 with the worst safety records.

• Wembley to Willesden Junction – 5km route, north-west London’s
first major cycle route, connecting Wembley, Stonebridge Park and Willesden Junction.

Works to convert road carriageways to a cycleway do not amount to development requiring planning permission if they fall within section 55(2)(b) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990: “the carrying out on land within the boundaries of a road by a highway authority of any works required for the maintenance or improvement of the road but, in the case of any such works which are not exclusively for the maintenance of the road, not including any works which may have significant adverse effects on the environment“.

In R (The Licensed Taxi Drivers Association) v Transport for London (Patterson J, 10 February 2016) the LTDA sought a declaration that the construction of the East-West Cycle Superhighway without planning permission constituted a breach of planning control.

This was rejected by Patterson J:

“...whether the proposals cause significant adverse environmental effect is not for the court to decide. As Sullivan J (as he then was) said in R v Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council ex parte Milne [2001] 81 P&CR 27 at [106] to [108] the issue of environmental effect is an issue which requires an exercise of planning judgment which is not for the court. The issue for the court is whether the defendant erred in its contention or was irrational in reaching the conclusion that the works for the EWCS did not cause significant adverse environmental effect and did not require planning permission. For reasons that I have set out I am satisfied that the defendant on the evidence before it at the relevant time, did not err in law and was not irrational in reaching its conclusion that there was no significant adverse environmental effect from the proposals as a whole.”

Whether or not planning permission is required, on the facts, for any proposed cycleway, traffic regulation orders are required. Where the road is part of the local highway network rather than a TfL road, TfL needs the agreement of the relevant borough in order to secure all necessary orders. This was what of course recently scuppered TfL’s proposed pedestrianisation of Oxford Street.

The TfL road network:

Westminster City Council has also now successfully challenged TfL’s proposed construction of CS11, designed to run between Swiss Cottage and Portland Place, in R (City of Westminster) v Transport for London (Sir Ross Cranston, 13 September 2018), having taken over proceedings commenced by a group of local residents. Two parts of the route are on roads for which Westminster City Council is the statutory highway authority. Planning permission from the council is also potentially required for works proposed within Regent’s Park. The Council succeeded in its claim that TfL’s decision to proceed with constructing part of the route should have taken into account the legally relevant consideration that TfL might fail to obtain the necessary consents from Westminster City Council in relation to part of the route. TfL’s justification had assumed that the route would be constructed in its entirety and did not consider whether a phased approach would be viable.

It’s difficult entirely to blame the Mayor for these delays in rolling out CS routes. The control held by individual boroughs can be difficult to work around – RBKC having been another particularly intransigent authority – which makes delivery of these, by definition, cross-borough schemes slow and difficult.

Despite the wider strategic benefits of cycling in terms of health and air quality, the TRO statutory process can often be seen by local people as inadequate to protect their particular interests in relation to, for instance, the effects caused by displaced traffic or the implications for them of roads being closed to motor vehicles – leading to adversarial positions being taken.

But whatever the rights or wrongs in relation to CS11 or indeed in relation to the proposed pedestrianisation of Oxford Street, I find it disappointing to see such public disagreements between the Mayor and Westminster City Council. After all, no one wants a London version of the Gallagher brothers.

Simon Ricketts, 23 September 2018

Personal views, et cetera

All About That Base

Good planning relies on good baselines. Determining the correct baseline or fallback position is the vital starting point for determining the effects that a development proposal would have, but is not easy – often involving the need for judgment as to what can be done in any event without planning permission or what the position would be in any event in terms of, for instance air quality, highways movements or the effect on the level of daylight and sunlight that existing properties enjoy.

In Wiltshire Waste Alliance Limited v Secretary of State (Sir Ross Cranston, 10 May 2018), an inspector had granted permission on appeal for the extension of a waste recycling plant.

“Before him the company’s case was that if the appeal was dismissed the appeal site would continue to operate pursuant to a series of admittedly complicated planning permissions which, in any event, would allow a significant number of uses. The appeal was advanced on the basis of these “no project” baselines being in existence. No other grounds were advanced for the grant of planning permission. Essentially the claimant’s case against the appeal was that these baseline activities were not in fact permitted under the permissions operating. Further, for practical reasons what was permitted was limited and in any event could not take place.”

In his decision letter the inspector had identified that it was crucial to the proper determination of the appeal that the effects of generated HGV traffic on the highway network and air quality were calculated “on a precautionary basis and compared with any planning fall-back position from which realistic baseline positions are drawn. It is established law that for a fall-back position to be taken into account it must be legally possible with respect to existing permitted land uses and also likely to occur on available evidence.”

The planning permission for the existing facility did not include any condition restricting the amount of waste that could be treated, but the application for it had indicated a figure of up to 25,000 tonnes per annum for one area, whereas the fallback position being relied upon by the operator at the appeal had assumed that this could be increased to 75,000 tonnes without the need for planning permission. It argued that the 25,000 figure was no limitation (applying the I’m Your Man case, recently approved of by the Court of Appeal in Lambeth LBC v Secretary of State). The claimant argued that the inspector had not considered whether such an increase in the quantity of material treated would have amounted to a material change of use by way of intensification. Retired High Court judge Sir Ross Cranston accepted the claimant’s argument, but also determined, as had been conceded by the Secretary of State, that the inspector had also wrongly noted that the application document referring to the 25,000 tonnes figure had not been incorporated by reference into the permission. Sir Ross Cranston’s summary of the arguments and reasoning is brief. (In the light of the Lambeth case I don’t see how incorporation by reference of the application document is relevant.)

As well as meaning that the inspector had made a legal error in the way that he had considered the fallback position, the judge accepted that the approach that had been taken “has the potential to infect the conclusions regarding the baseline scenarios” for the purposes of assessment of likely significant environmental effects in the environmental impact assessment.

It is a cautionary tale – ensure that you can justify any fallback or baseline position that you rely upon.

Whilst it didn’t matter for the purposes of the judgment, I assume that the proposal was assessed under the 2011 EIA Regulations. The 2017 Regulations are more prescriptive. EIA now needs to include a “description of the relevant aspects of the current state of the environment (baseline scenario) and an outline of the likely evolution thereof without implementation of the development as far as natural changes from the baseline scenario can be assessed with reasonable effort on the basis of the availability of environmental information and scientific knowledge“.

The more far-reaching and longer-term the effects of a project, the more complex the analysis ends up being, as can be seen from the Secretary of State’s decision dated 10 May 2018 to authorise the development consent order applied for by Transport for London in relation to the proposed Silvertown twin-bore road tunnel under the Thames (a scheme which also was promoted under the previous EIA legislation). The task of analysing what would be the position in terms of issues such as congestion and air quality is complex. There will be much focus on his conclusion on air quality effects in particular, namely that “greater weight needs to be placed on the impact of the Development on the zone [for the Greater Urban London area as a whole] rather than at individual receptors. The Secretary of States therefore places weight on the fact that whilst some receptors will experience a worsening in air quality as a result of the Development, overall the Development should have a beneficial impact on air quality and that the Development is not predicted to delay compliance with the [Air Quality Directive] in the timeframes that the Updated [Air Quality Plan], including the zone plan for the Greater Urban London area, sets out as being the quickest possible time.”

We have seen recently how assumptions as to air quality levels can be proved wrong in ways that are unexpected, such as the VW emissions scandal that threw into question the degree to which air quality levels would improve as newer vehicles replaced older ones on the road, or ways which are possibly less unexpected, such as the Government’s delayed compliance with the Air Quality Directive.

Accurate analysis is of course equally necessary with more routine non-EIA projects: that is, accurate analysis both in the relevant technical assessment, whatever it may be, and accurate analysis by the decision maker in taking it into account in reaching a decision. R (Rainbird) v London Borough of Tower Hamlets (Deputy Judge John Howell QC, 28 March 2018) was a recent example of a planning permission being quashed (that the council had granted to itself for an affordable housing development) because of incorrect conclusions being drawn from a report on sunlight and daylight issues, that in itself was held to be significantly misleading in a number of respects, both in relation to the relevant baseline position and in its analysis of compliance with the relevant BRE guidelines that had been incorporated into the council’s local plan. However, every case inevitably turns on its own facts and, as the judge identified, the threshold for challenge is high:

⁃ Baroness Hale in Morge v Hampshire County Council (Supreme Court, 19 January 2011: “reports obviously have to be clear and full enough to enable [members] to understand the issues and make up their minds within the limits that the law allows them. But the courts should not impose too demanding a standard upon such reports, for otherwise their whole purpose will be defeated: the councillors either will not read them or will not have a clear enough grasp of the issues to make a decision for themselves”

⁃ Lindblom LJ in Mansell v Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council (Court of Appeal, 8 September 2017): “The question for the court will always be whether, on a fair reading of his report as a whole, the officer has significantly misled the members on a matter bearing upon their decision, and the error goes uncorrected before the decision is made. Minor mistakes may be excused. It is only if the advice is such as to misdirect the members in a serious way—for example, by failing to draw their attention to considerations material to their decision or bringing into account considerations that are immaterial, or misinforming them about relevant facts, or providing them with a false understanding of relevant planning policy—that the court will be able to conclude that their decision was rendered unlawful by the advice they were given.

Where the line is drawn between an officer’s advice that is significantly or seriously misleading—misleading in a material way—and advice that is misleading but not significantly so will always depend on the context and circumstances in which the advice was given, and on the possible consequences of it. There will be cases in which a planning officer has inadvertently led a committee astray by making some significant error of fact.., or has plainly misdirected the members as to the meaning of a relevant policy… There will be others where the officer has simply failed to deal with a matter on which the committee ought to receive explicit advice if the local planning authority is to be seen to have performed its decision-making duties in accordance with the law…. But unless there is some distinct and material defect in the officer’s advice, the court will not interfere.”

⁃ Section 31 (2A) of the Senior Courts Act 1981 provides that the High Court “must refuse to grant relief on an application for judicial review…if it appears to the court to be highly likely that the outcome for the applicant would not have been substantially different if the conduct complained of had not occurred” unless it is appropriate to disregard this “for reasons of exceptional public interest.”

Simon Ricketts, 12 May 2018

Personal views, et cetera

The UK Government & Air Quality (ahem)

The saga over the UK government’s non-compliance with air quality standards has casualties: a recent study estimated that around 40,000 premature deaths are caused per year due to air pollution.

The government has been in breach of the Air Quality Directive since 1 January 2010, by failing to take measures to ensure defined maximum limits of nitrogen dioxide are not exceeded. Limits are currently exceeded in 38 out of 43 zones in the country (each zone representing a conurbation with a population exceeding 250,000). By way of example, acceptable levels are not expected to be realised in London until 2025.
The Supreme Court in R (ClientEarth) v Secretary of State (29 April 2015) made a “mandatory order requiring the Secretary of State to prepare new air quality plans under article 23(1), in accordance with a defined timetable, to end with delivery of the revised plans to the Commission not later than 31 December 2015”.
The Government purported to comply with the order by way of an announcement on 17 December 2015 the main thrust of which was the introduction of Clean Air Zones in Birmingham, Leeds, Nottingham, Derby and Southampton by 2020, within which zones the most polluting vehicles would be discouraged through charging schemes.
ClientEarth then embarked on a second set of proceedings, challenging the proposals on two grounds:
– they did not meet the Directive’s requirement that exceedance periods be kept “as short as possible”

– The government “gave disproportionate and unlawful weight to cost and political sensitivity“.

The factual background and law are set out in detail in Nathalie Lieven QC’s skeleton argument for ClientEarth.
In a bad week for the Government Legal Department, the High Court found for the claimant in a robust judgment by Garnham J handed down on 2 November 2016 (ClientEarth (no 2) v Secretary of State).

Some interesting passages:
Para 50: “…I reject any suggestion that the state can have any regard to cost in fixing the target date for compliance or in determining the route by which the compliance can be achieved where one route produces results quicker than another. In those respects the determining consideration has to be the efficacy of the measure in question and not their cost.”
Para 53: “…implicit in the obligation “to ensure” is an obligation to take steps which mean meeting the value limits is not just possible, but likely.”
Para 69: “Whatever the reason for selecting 2020 may have been, however, I am satisfied that the department erred in law in selecting so distant a date. The problem of reducing nitrogen dioxide levels was urgent and the plan to do so should have been aimed at achieving compliance in the shortest possible time, regardless of administrative inconvenience or the costs of making the necessary investigations.”
Para 86: “…In my judgement, the [Air Quality Plan] did not identify measures which would ensure that the exceedance period would be kept as short as possible; instead it identified measures which, if very optimistic forecasts happened to be proved right and emerging data happened to be wrong, might achieve compliance. To adopt a plan based on such assumptions was to breach both the Directive and the Regulations.”
Para 89: “…it seems to me likely that fixing on a more proximate compliance target date and adopting a less optimistic assumption for likely emissions might well mean that CAZs are required in more cities, but ultimately that will depend on the outcome of further modelling.”
The judge’s conclusions are set out in para 95:
“i) that the proper construction of Article 23 means that the Secretary of State must aim to achieve compliance by the soonest date possible, that she must choose a route to that objective which reduces exposure as quickly as possible, and that she must take steps which mean meeting the value limits is not just possible, but likely.

ii) that the Secretary of State fell into error in fixing on a projected compliance date of 2020 (and 2025 for London);  

iii) that the Secretary of State fell into error by adopting too optimistic a model for future emissions; and  

iv) that it would be appropriate to make a declaration that the 2015 AQP fails to comply with Article 23(1) of the Directive and Regulation 26(2) of the Air Quality Standards Regulations 2010, and an order quashing the plan. “

Despite what the Daily Mail may think, the judge did not prescribe specific steps for the government to take, rejecting Nathalie Lieven’s examples of “fiscal measures to disincentivise the use of diesel cars and vans, locally targeted scrappage schemes, targeted vehicle retrofitting schemes and measures specifically targeting diesel cars, which she suggested ought to be adopted so as either to make more certain the achievement of the objectives in the Directive or advance the date of compliance“. How the limits are to be complied with is for the government to decide.

For a detailed analysis I recommend David Hart QC’s blog post.

The ruling led to a debate in the House of Commons on 3 November 2016. The minister stated: “We accept the judgment of the court and will now carefully consider it, and our next steps, in detail“. Does “accept” mean no appeal? We shall see.
What does the ruling mean for planning decisions?
The government’s Planning Practice Guidance has a useful section on air quality.

However Robert McCracken QC’s 6 October 2015 opinion has been widely circulated as somewhat of a lobbying document for Clean Air in London, urging a more restrictive approach. It postulates that:
– because of the government’s breaches of the Air Quality Directive, LPAs have a duty in their decision-making to seek to achieve compliance with the Directive’s limit values

– where a development would cause a breach in the locality, would make significantly worse an existing breach or delay the achievement of compliance with limit values, they must refuse permission

– even where limit values are not exceeded in the locality, LPAs must try to prevent developments from worsening air quality and to achieve best air quality.

The opinion relies on the CJEU’s ruling in Naturschutz Deutschland v Germany (1 July 2015), a case about water standards under the EU Water Framework Directive. The conclusions reached in the opinion would now need to be tempered by the High Court’s ruling in the Enderby Wharf cruise liner terminal case, PS by his litigation friend TS v Royal Borough of Greenwich (Collins J, 3 August 2016), where a claim that the LPA failed to consider and give effect to the need to ensure that air quality standards were met was unsuccessful – particularly as the opinion specifically refers to the cruise liner proposal by way of example and suggests, not borne out by the case, that the permission would only be lawful with a Grampian condition preventing use of the terminal until air quality could be shown to be acceptable.

However (particularly following the latest ClientEarth ruling), in order to minimise the risk of judicial review, undoubtedly care is needed in relation to the analysis and assessment of any project that is in a location where nitrogen dioxide values are exceeded, would be exceeded as a result of the scheme, or would be significantly increased. There is obviously also a read across to the question of Heathrow expansion…
Simon Ricketts 4.11.16

Personal views, et cetera

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