Local Authorities Can't Challenge Dcos And Other Judicial Review Proposals

Today's entry looks at a further consulation aimed at speeding up - and weeding out - planning and other judicial review challenges.

As heralded in previous blog entries, the Ministry of Justice has now launched a consultation on further reforms to planning judicial reviews. Essentially, it addresses who can launch claims, what can be challenged, who hears them, and who pays for them. That seems pretty comprehensive, but the reforms are all only indirectly aimed at the main issue: how long they take.

The consultation document is here and the closing date is 1 November. It has the most questions - 43 - I've seen for a while.

Who can launch claims

The only proposal directed specifically towards the Planning Act 2008 regime is to remove the ability for local authorites to challenge decisions under the Act, unless they are the promoter. That is a pretty strange proposal as not only have there not been any such challenges to date, but I have not heard of any threatened ones either. The government is presumably worried that there are proposals that may get challenged in the future - certain super-sewers or new runways, perhaps. Should such worries mean that councils are denied the ability to challenge decisions, though?

The consultation also asks questions about the 'standing' of challengers in general, asking if it should prevent people without much genuine involvement in a situation bringing challenges. The government suggests adopting restrictions used in other situations, such as standing under EU law ('a direct and individual concern'), under the Human Rights Act 1998 (a victim of the alleged breach), for statutory challenges under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 ('a person aggrieved'), or for entitlement to legal aid (the potential for the decision to produce benefit to the person, their family or the environment). A useful reminder on what restrictions on standing currently exist, at least.

What can be challenged

There are proposals to reduce the ability to claim for 'procedural irregularity', i.e. that something went wrong with the process that was followed, but where there would have been no difference to the outcome if the irregularity had not occurred. The government is worried, though, that this would simply transfer cost, time and effort to arguing whether there would have been a difference to the outcome or not. I am reminded a bit about the Growth and Infrastructure Act 2013 provision to challenge requests for irrelevant...