Title:
Garner, R (on the application of) v Elmbridge Borough Council & Ors.
Party:
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Region:
Europe
Type of document:
National - higher court
Date of text:
July 29, 2010
Data source:
InforMEA
Court name:
Court of Appeal
Seat of court:
London
Justice(s):
Lloyd
Richards
Sullivan.
Reference number:
[2010] EWCA Civ 1006
Abstract:
The applicant challenged a grant of planning permission for redevelopment of a railway station and surrounding areas opposite an historic palace. The applicant applied for a PCO. The Court of Appeal overturned the lower courts' decisions and granted the PCO. The Court, observed that Corner House should only be modified to the extent required to secure compliance with the EU Directive, and held that the 'general public importance' and 'public interest' requirements do not apply to article 10a cases, because: Both Aarhus and the directive are based on the premise that it is in the public interest that there should be effective public participation in the decision-making process in significant environmental cases … and an important component of that public participation is that the public should be able to ensure, through an effective review procedure that is not prohibitively expensive, that such important environmental decisions are lawfully taken.
On the issue of whether costs in a proceeding rise to the level of 'prohibitively expensive', the Judge rejected the lower courts' purely subjective approach to the issue, and suggested that the inquiry should be largely objective, based on a consideration of whether costs would be prohibitively expensive for 'an ordinary member of the public concerned'. Therefore, it will now be significantly easier to obtain a PCO in cases where article 10a applies (which is likely to cover most environmental public interest litigation).
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