Credit: Dedham Vale Society
The Dedham Vale Society and Campaign for National Parks have won a judicial review over the development of a significant car park extension and lighting at Manningtree Station, Essex.
The Campaign
The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, then Michael Gove, decided to approve the development of a significant car park extension and lighting at Manningtree Station, Essex, without observing a new legal duty to “conserve and enhance” National Parks and National Landscapes. Greater Anglia installed the 200-car extension with 58 new eight-metre lighting columns and 190-metre-long red steel wall along a regionally important footpath into Constable Country, St Edmund Way, without planning permission in 2020. A planning inspector decided in May 2024 that, contrary to a previous decision by the local council, the development was unlikely to have a significant effect on the environment and that the development therefore fell within the remit of the permitted development regime. However, in doing so, as now admitted, she failed to consider the new statutory duty to “conserve and enhance” the National Landscape, previously known as the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Dedham Vale Society launched judicial review proceedings in August 2024, which Mr Gove’s successor as Secretary of State, Angela Rayner, and Greater Anglia intended to fight. Campaign for National Parks was granted permission from the High Court to intervene, on the grounds that this case would set an important national precedent. However, following submission of legal arguments from the Dedham Vale Society and Campaign for National Parks, the Government’s defence crumbled.
Credit: Dedham Vale Society.
We want to say thank you to SMK for being shortlisted in the law category of the National Campaigner Awards.”
Charles Clover
Chair, Dedham Vale Society
The Change
Just weeks before the case was due to be heard in Court, the Secretary of State admitted that the Government’s actions were unlawful and decided not to contest the case. In a Consent Order filed with the High Court on Monday, Government lawyers said, “The Secretary of State accepts that the failure to apply the statutory duty to seek to further the purposes of the National Landscape when making the screening decision constitutes an error of law and the outcome might have been different had it been applied.”
The Government’s decision was therefore unlawful and has been quashed. The Government has agreed to pay the Dedham Vale Society’s costs.
The case sets a critical precedent for all of England’s 10 National Parks and 34 National Landscapes (previously AONBs), making clear that all public bodies must comply with the law to further conservation and enhancement of these areas.
The Future
Hannah Brown, from Richard Buxton Solicitors, solicitors for Dedham Vale Society said, “The revised duty places a high bar on actions that will impact England’s most valued landscapes and their settings. Properly applied, it will mean that decisions that affect these areas, such as the management of waterways, landscapes, cultural heritage, tranquility and wildness will receive greater protection, and indeed be enhanced, as the Act anticipated. However, as this case shows, the Duty is not being applied as it should be. We hope the Dedham Vale Society’s case raises the profile of this important statutory protection to decision makers and the wider public, ensuring our most valuable landscapes receive the statutory protections they are entitled to.”
Who else was involved?
Campaign for National Parks, Leigh Day, Richard Buxton Solicitors
