My name is Naomi and I’m from Rights : Community : Action – a campaigning group standing up for people and the environment.

Last year we brought a Judicial Review against part of Boris Johnson’s undemocratic plans to “tear down the planning system and start again”. 

We did this because the planning system in England – what’s left of it – gives us all a voice over what development happens where.  

We lost the case, but were given grounds to appeal. That means we still have the opportunity to stop the changes in their tracks. 

For that we need your help.  

What has happened up to now

On 30 June 2020 Boris Johnson announced the most “radical reforms to our planning system since the Second World War… [giving] greater freedom for buildings and land in our town centres to change use without planning permission”.

He was right. The government's changes are radical and will have enormous consequences for the places that we live, the environment, and our right to have a say.  The changes were pushed through Parliament in a way that means there was no real opportunity for MPs to scrutinise them. 

Our original Judicial Review focused on part of the changes, pushed by Boris Johnson’s former adviser Dominic Cummings, which gave what are called ‘permitted development rights’ (PDR) to developers. These changes have gone ahead, meaning that developers no longer need to apply for permission to demolish commercial buildings and build residential ones. The government’s own research has shown that this can result in “slums” and will have big impacts on the environment. Read more in this Observer expose of what living in these homes can be like. 

Worst of all, you don’t get a say on PDR.

We lost our claim for Judicial Review, but even though the PDR changes have now become law, if our appeal is successful they would cease to apply.

Why this matters

When our planning laws were introduced after the Second World War, they were aimed at putting the public interest above the profits of developers. The essence of the planning regime has stayed in place so long because, by and large, it serves its purpose of protecting our communities and our rights. 

You can read more about the ugly truth of the government’s war on the planning system here. 

The Government has faced a huge backlash from across society and from many of its own MPs about its planning changes, of which PDR was the vanguard. The new Secretary of State responsible, Michael Gove, is thought to be pausing the plans for a rethink.   

This only underlines why we were right to bring the original case against these dangerous and unpopular changes, and why we are right to keep on fighting it.  

But the PDR changes will take half a million buildings in England out of the local planning system entirely. Even if Mr Gove rethinks wider planning reforms, PDR is already having a big impact. 

Our case 

We are continuing to challenge the Government on the way they have made these changes to development decisions - by taking them out of the planning application system to making them ‘permitted development’. We don’t think they have followed the right process in making these changes law.

Beforehand, such decisions would have needed a planning application which would be decided in line with a local plan, which has to be assessed for its environmental impacts.

Our grounds are that the changes take an unknown number of developments out of this existing system, and puts them into a new system, without working out what environmental impacts this could cause. 

As we have said in our legal documents: 

“In terms of environmental impacts, the Secretary of State cannot rely on Environmental Impact Assessment (“EIA”) to bypass the overarching SEA requirement: and in any event, the potential environmental impacts cannot be summarily dismissed without a proper screening process.”

In our view, in the same manner that the Secretary of State bypassed Parliament, he has also bypassed the law.

We have instructed solicitors Leigh Day and Paul Brown QC and Alex Shattock of Landmark Chambers.

For more information, see our Grounds of Appeal and Skeleton Argument. 

We were in the Court of Appeal on the 5th of October 2021. We won’t hear the result for a few weeks. We’re a small organisation without anything like the resources of the government. 

Our target

We must raise a minimum of £7,000 to cover court fees and the worst case scenario if we lose the case and are ordered to pay the government’s costs.

We also hope to raise an additional £6,000 to cover the legal fees of our barristers and solicitors who have agreed to act on heavily reduced rates.

Any funds raised will be used for legal fees to support our campaigning work to keep your voice alive in the planning system - which will sadly be a long fight.