Environmental judicial review involving HS2 fails at the permission stage (R (Misbourne Environmental Protection Ltd) v Environment Agency)

Table of contents

• What are the practical implications of this case?
• What was the background?
• What did the court decide?
• Ground 2
• Ground 4
• Ground 1
• Case details

Article summary

Environment analysis: This is a challenge to a consent granted by the Environment Agency under the primary legislation which authorised construction of the HS2 railway from London to the West Midlands. It is rare, and probably unique, to see a challenge to such a ‘secondary’ consent. The grounds were concerned with requirements to attain good quality status for groundwater and the claimant’s case was that the effects of tunnelling through the Chilterns had not been properly assessed under the retained EU law from the Water Framework Directive, Directive 2000/60/EC (WFD). The claim was refused permission to proceed. Written by Howard Leithead, barrister at No5 Chambers.