PM to curb 'Nimby' legal blocks to infrastructure projects

Responding to this announcement, Niall Toru, senior lawyer at Friends of the Earth, said:

"It is deeply concerning that Labour is attempting to scapegoat claimants. The government has framed this as a matter of avoiding 'cynical' challenges but the proposed changes would only serve to undermine valid concerns about a project's impact and favour developers at a cost to people and the environment. 

"Friends of the Earth only brings cases we think are strong and necessary to protect people and nature from unlawful harm, and considering our string of recent legal wins, so do the courts.

"If ministers don’t want to be challenged in the courts they should act within the law, because already cases aren't allowed to proceed unless they have merit. It’d be far more cost-effective to ensure proposals for major infrastructure projects are designed with proper, meaningful community engagement from the outset, which would help to avoid lengthy drawn out legal battles when they’re not up to scratch.”

ENDS