Fertilisation of previously neglected agricultural land — Whether restoration of land to normal level of agricultural productivity amounting to intervention for intensive agricultural purposes — Whether screening decision required — Regulation 2(1) of Environmental Impact Assessment (Uncultivated Land and Semi-natural Areas)(England and Wales) Regulations 2001 — Appeal allowed
The appellant owned a farm that had previously been tenanted but had since fallen out of cultivation. She applied farmyard manure and calcified seaweed to four fields with a view to making them suitable grazing land for cattle. However, she was convicted of four charges of carrying out projects without obtaining a screening decision or the grant of consent from the respondent Secretary of State, contrary to regulation 19 of the Environmental Impact Assessment (Uncultivated Land and Semi-natural Areas)(England and Wales) Regulations 2001. The word “project” was defined in regulation 2(1) of the 2001 Regulations, implementing para 1(b) of Annex II of Council Directive 85/337/EEC (the EIA Directive) as an intervention in the natural surroundings and landscape “involving the use of uncultivated land or semi-natural areas for intensive agricultural purposes”.
The appellant appealed by way of case stated. The question for determination was whether an increase in the productivity of a given area, or an intensification of the agricultural purposes to which the land was put, came within the regulation 2 definition. The respondent argued that although the appellant’s intervention involved no more than the reinvigoration of farmland that had been badly neglected for years, it would destroy what had become a significant habitat for acid-loving flora. In those circumstances, he submitted that a project intended to cultivate previously uncultivated land was one designed for an intensive agricultural purpose.
Held: The appeal was allowed.
In interpreting regulations based upon EC law, it was incumbent upon a national court, if confronted with a dispute concerning the meaning of a phrase used in a directive, to identify the purpose of the directive and to adopt a meaning (provided that the words are capable of bearing that meaning) that best promotes the wide scope and broad purpose of the directive: Aannemersbedrijf PK Kraaijeveld BV v Gedeputeerde Staten van Zuid-Holland C-72/95 [1996] ECR I-5403; [1997] All ER (EC) 134 applied.
In the present case, what had been done could not be described as an intervention for intensive agricultural purposes. The EIA Directive was not intended to catch a project that was concerned only to bring land back to a normal level of agricultural productivity. An increase in the productivity of a given area, or an intensification of the agricultural purposes to which the land was put, did not come within the definition of “intensive agricultural purposes” unless the productivity of the land for agricultural purposes was intensified above the norm.
William Batstone (instructed by Chanter Ferguson, of Bideford) appeared for the appellant; Peter Blair (instructed by the legal department of DEFRA) appeared for the respondent.
Sally Dobson, barrister
