Pressure is growing to renegotiate or leave an international convention blamed for slowing building projects and increasing costs after a judge warned campaigners they are in danger of “the misuse of judicial review”.
Under the Aarhus Convention, campaigners who challenge projects on environmental grounds but then lose in court against housing and big infrastructure have their costs above £10,000 capped and the rest met by the taxpayer.
Government figures say this situation is “mad” but ministers have not acted, despite promising to do so for months.
The Tories are today leading the call for change with a demand to reform or leave the convention.
In March, Sky News revealed how a computer scientist from Norfolk had challenged a carbon capture and storage project attached to a gas-fired power station on multiple occasions.
Andrew Boswell took his challenge all the way the appeal court, causing delays of months at a cost of over £100m to the developers.
In May, the verdict handed down by the Court of Appeal was scathing about Dr Boswell’s case.
“Dr Boswell’s approach is, we think, a classic example of the misuse of judicial review in order to continue a campaign against a development… once a party has lost the argument on the planning merits,” wrote the judges.
They added: “Such an approach is inimical to the scheme enacted by parliament for the taking of decisions in the public interest,” adding his case “betrays a serious misunderstanding of the decision of the Supreme Court” and “the appeal must therefore be rejected”.
Another case – against a housing development in a series of fields in Cranbrook, Kent – was thrown out by judges in recent weeks.
The case was brought by CPRE Kent, the countryside challenge, to preserve a set of fields between two housing developments alongside an area of outstanding natural beauty.
John Wotton, from CPRE Kent, suggested it would have been hard to bring the challenge without the costs being…
