The IHBC has launched its second research note, prepared by IHBC member Bob Kindred MBE, which reviews planning related applications for judicial review and which, following previous calls for the review process to be made more costly, concludes that the numbers are ‘trivial’, and observes that it ‘was precisely in order to ensure compliance with the [Aarhus] Convention that the Ministry of Justice put forward proposals to limit the costs in environment-related judicial review cases.’
Bob Kindred writes:
‘The Prime Minister indicated at the CBI in late 2011 that applications for judicial review (JR) on planning or infrastructure proposals were a ‘growth industry’; an impediment to economic recovery; that many applications were ‘hopeless’; and that it should be more expensive and difficult to apply for one. Overall there were 11,200 JR cases of all categories in 2011.’
‘Frank Dobson MP (Lab) subsequently obtained more detailed figures from the Ministry of Justice about judicial reviews related to planning or infrastructure proposals in each year since 1998…’
‘The number of planning cases is trivial, representing only about 7 or 8 per cent (9% at most, in some years). As a proportion of all JR applications, planning-related JR applications account for less than 2% of the overall total.’
View and download the research note here: LINK
