Starmer vows to change UK law to speed up major infrastructure builds

Prime minister Kier Starmer at the Northern Lights CCUS project. Photo: UK government via Flickr

In a statement, Prime Minister Kier Starmer said that he planned to change primary legislation so that campaigners challenging the construction of major projects would only be given one opportunity to secure permission for a judicial review.

Under current rules, opponents to major projects may ask for a judicial review via three routes – writing to the High Court, attending an oral hearing or appealing to the Court of Appeal.

The government said that this means that cases can be brought back to the courts three times, causing years of delay and hundreds of millions of cost to projects.

Examples of current projects delayed by long running legal challenges include the Sizewell C power plant in Suffolk which was first proposed in 2012 and the A47 road between Birmingham and Lowestoft.

The government said that the change would strike a balance between ensuring ongoing access to justice, while pushing back against, “a challenge culture where small pressure groups use the courts to obstruct decisions taken in the national interest.”

“For too long, blockers have had the upper hand in legal challenges – using our court processes to frustrate growth,” Kier Starmer said. “We’re putting an end to this challenge culture by taking on the NIMBYs [ Not In My Backyard] and a broken system that has slowed down our progress as a nation.”

Leo Quinn, Balfour Beatty Group chief executive, welcomed the proposals. “Reducing the uncertainty that delays progress and drives up costs should help unlock significant economic benefits and enable faster delivery of the critical infrastructure that the UK urgently needs,” he said.