'Nimbys and zealots gumming up the legal system' are the focus of an attack by the prime minister today on court challenges to infrastructure projects. In an article for the Mail ahead of an announcement on judicial review reform, Sir Keir Starmer says cases are brought by groups who 'know they have no chance of winning' but nonetheless seek to delay transport and energy projects.
More than half of all decisions on major infrastructure in this country were taken to court, Starmer said, 'holding us back and stifling growth'.
Starmer cites several examples of what he calls 'Nimbys and zealots gumming up the legal system'. They include a Boswell v Secretary of State for Transport, a challenge to upgrades to the A47, in which a Court of Appeal judge said a complaint had 'an air of complete unreality'. Another was Together against Sizewell C v Secretary of State for Energy Security, in which plans for a nuclear power plant was challenged on the ground that the government had not considered the need to provide drinking water to the site during its construction.
Likening legal challengers to Extinction Rebellion activists, Startmer continued 'it is fear of challenge which leads to the ridiculous spectacle of the £100 million bat tunnel for HS2 or the proposal to install an "acoustic fish deterrent" – 288 underwater speakers designed to scare fish away from Hinkley Point C nuclear power station. I wish I was joking’.
Reminding readers of his previous legal career, Starmer says 'I was the country’s chief prosecutor, locking up criminals and keeping the country safe. So I know how important it is that people can access justice when there is a genuine case to be made. But Mail readers will agree that a small minority should not be able to abuse our legal system to hold the country to ransom.
'The current rules don’t work,' the prime minister concludes. An announcement on reforms to the judicial review system is expected this morning.
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