UK Law and Practice Contributed by: Ruth Knox and Julian Wolfgramm-King, Paul Hastings LLP
licensing round on the basis that UK government did not need to take into account Scope 3 GHG emissions when preparing the strategic environmental assess - ment of its Offshore Energy Plan. In R ( LADACAN ) v SST and Anor [2025] EWHC 3206 (Admin), the High Court dismissed the application for judicial review of Secretary of State’s decision to grant a Development Consent Order for the expansion of London Luton Airport on the basis that “the evalu - ation of the significance of an estimated amount of GHG emissions and its acceptability is a matter of fact and judgment for the decision-maker. He or she may decide to choose benchmarks to help in arriving at that judgment. But that choice too is a matter of judg - ment for them”. Such evaluation can be challenged on the basis of Wednesbury unreasonableness, which was not pursued in this case. In R ( Caffyn ) v Shropshire Council , Caffyn, filed an application for judicial review challenging Shropshire Council’s decision to grant planning permission for an intensive poultry unit at a local farm. The facility was expected to generate large volumes of manure, much of which would be treated in an anaerobic digester to produce digestate for use as fertiliser. The claim focused on the adequacy of the environmental impact assessment conducted under the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regula - tions 2017, and on compliance with the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017. The claim - ant argued, relying on the Supreme Court’s reasoning in R ( Finch ) v Surrey County Council [2024] UKSC 20, that the Council was required to assess the indirect environmental effects of spreading manure and diges - tate on farmland and watercourses. Fordham J held that the Council’s approach was unlawful. Although officers had collected information, they failed to make the evaluative judgments required by Finch on causa - tion and on the capability of meaningful assessment of indirect effects. The judge found that processing manure into digestate did not break the causal chain between the IPU and subsequent environmental effects, and that the impacts of digestate – such as nutrient pollution, ammonia emissions, and contribu - tions to climate-relevant air and water quality degra - dation – were sufficiently connected to the project to require assessment.
In R ( Hynot Limited ) v Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero ( SSESNZ ) and another , a group of NGOs brought a judicial review against the decision by the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (SSESNZ) to agree to the grant of consent for the “HyNet Carbon Dioxide Transportation and Storage Project – Offshore” (the “Development”), itself part of a larger project involving hydrogen production, trans - port and storage (the “HyNet Cluster”). The Develop - ment comprises three geological gas storage sites in the Liverpool Bay Area beneath the East Irish Sea, and is designed to store 109 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. The claimant also challenged the decision of the Oil and Gas Authority (trading as the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA)) to grant consent for the Development. The challenge was brought on three grounds: • ground 1 – failure to assess major accidents and disasters (MAD) effects and/or a failure to carry out a lawful public consultation, as required under the EIA Regulations; • ground 2 – failure to assess cumulative effects of the Development on climate, as required under the EIA Regulations; and • ground 3 – failure to comply with the requirements of the Offshore Petroleum Activities (Conservation of Habitats) Regulations 2001. The Court, on 15 October 2025, refused HyNot’s appli - cation for judicial review. It found that: on ground 1, the MAD had been assessed through the EIA process – which EIA legislation “does not impose a standard of perfection”, but rather requires “an adequate basis for public consultation”. On the flooding risk to the terminal, which the claimant had highlighted, the court found that the emergency shut down process which would be in place was “a rational approach”, and that the Secretary of State had made no arguable legal error in relation to it. Moreover, the court found that the Secretary of State had complied with the consultation requirements. On ground 2, the claim - ant argued that, to fully assess the Development’s environmental effects and its impact on climate, the cumulative effects of the wider HyNet Cluster needed to be assessed. The court disagreed, finding that it had to focus on the specific project, the Development; here, consent wasn’t being sought for a “multi-phase
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