Starmer vows to curb ‘NIMBY’ legal blocks on infrastructure

Labour has placed planning reforms at the heart of its mission to drive economic growth, also promising to deliver 1.5 million new homes in five years.

During the election Sir Keir’s election pledged to back “builders, not blockers” and promised Labour would prioritise infrastructure to boost growth and expand green energy.

The government has promised to make 150 major infrastructure project decisions by the next election.

The latest announcement follows a review by planning lawyer Lord Charles Banner, external, who recommended streamlining the judicial review process so claimants had “fewer bites of the cherry” when seeking permission to bring a case.

The review found that around a third of applications for judicial review of major projects were refused permission to proceed entirely, although it was not clear how many had been deemed “totally without merit”.

Welcoming the changes Lord Banner said “reducing the number of permission attempts to one for truly hopeless cases should weed out the worst offenders”.

“I look forward to seeing these changes help to deliver a step change in the pace of infrastructure delivery in the months and years ahead.”

According to the government, more than half of decisions on nationally significant infrastructure projects are taken to court – causing an average delay of 18 months and adding millions to costs.

Officials pointed to cases including the approval of Sizewell C in Suffolk, where campaigners spent 16 months seeking permission for a judicial review despite their case being described as “unarguable” at every stage.

However, only some of the grounds in the Sizewell C case were deemed “totally without merit”, meaning the remaining grounds could still have been reconsidered by the Court of Appeal.