Suffolk coastal district council’s core strategy allocation of land for 2,000 new homes has survived a renewed legal challenge at the Court of Appeal.
Richards LJ today upheld a high court decision last year in which Patterson J rejected a challenge put forward by a campaign group which says that the development at Martlesham Heath will have an irretrievable negative effect on the nearby estuary of the River Deben.
The campaign group, No Adastral New Town (NANT), had claimed the council had failed to investigate the site’s proximity to the estuary at a sufficiently early stage before it was selected as the preferred option for the allocation, and hoped to persuade the Court of Appeal to quash the allocation of 2,000 new homes near BT’s Adastral Park complex. It also alleged that the council failed in its duties under the European Habitats Directive and the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) Directive.
In the decision under challenge, Patterson ruled last February that, though there had been a flaw in the early decision-making process on the part of the council, the early errors in the SEA had been corrected before the Core Strategy was adopted.
On appeal, NANT claimed that this was not enough, but Richards LJ rejected this argument.
Dismissing all of NANT’s grounds, he said that the Council had been “fully informed about all the environmental implications” and of the results of public consultation on the effect of an increase in the number of homes from 1,050 to 2,000 homes.
He said: “The judge was right to find that the earlier deficiencies in the Strategic Environmental Appraisal process had been cured.”
He rejected an additional claim that the council had breached the Habitats Directive, and refused NANT permission to appeal to the Supreme Court. It remains open to the group to seek permission directly from the Supreme Court.
No Adastral New Town Ltd v Suffolk Coastal District Council Court of Appeal (Richards, Underhill and Briggs LJJ) 17 February 2015
Richard Buxton (instructed by Richard Buxton Environmental and Public Law, Cambridge) for the claimant/appellant
Paul Shadarevian and Emma Dring (instructed by Suffolk Coastal District Council Legal Services) for the defendant/respondent
