Latest court cases
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Druridge Bay opencast coal mine (2020)
In 2020, after a back and forth in the courts, then-secretary Robert Jenrick refused planning permission by Banks Mining to build a new opencast coal mine at Druridge Bay in Northumberland on climate change grounds. Friends of the Earth worked with local campaigners to save the local beauty spot.
Heathrow Judicial Review (2020)
On 27 February 2020, in a ground-breaking victory for climate justice, the Court of Appeal ruled that the government’s policy giving the green light to expansion at Heathrow was unlawful on climate grounds. The ruling followed successful challenges by ourselves and Plan B. This victory shows that the government can't just pay lip service to its climate commitments - it must comply with them. It’s also a testament to the importance of people power and the decades of sustained resistance to Heathrow expansion by local activists, including the West London Friends of the Earth Groups Network.
Frack Free Three (2018)
In 2018, Simon Blevins, Richard Roberts and Rich Loizou were sent to prison. Known as the "Frack Free Three", they were jailed for causing a public nuisance during protests at Cuadrilla's site at Preston New Road in Lancashire. We joined Liberty to intervene in the mens' appeal in October 2018. We argued that their good-faith concerns about the environment had been wrongly used to justify draconian sentencing. Their sentences were quashed, and they walked free within hours of the appeal hearing.
National Planning Policy Framework
Good environmental governance is about action, not empty words. In December 2018 we took the government to court over its new national planning policy. This planning policy sets the guidelines for land use and development throughout England. We argued that it should be the subject of meaningful environmental assessment. Disappointingly the government got off on a technicality. However, we did succeed in establishing that the policy does have a determinative impact on the planning system and a significant effect on the environment.
Judicial Review costs protection
Environmental claims are public-interest claims because we all depend on a healthy environment for our daily lives. The environment cannot take its own cases, but the UK signed the Aarhus Convention to facilitate access to justice for environmental claimants with this in mind. However litigation can be expensive and risky because if you lose you will pay the other side's legal bill. When the government changed the rules that protected claimants from excessive legal costs, we challenged them to ensure financial protections remained.
Right to protest
Fracking companies have been seeking an increasing number of injunctions to suppress protests at their sites. We believe that these injunctions are disproportionate and are an attack on free speech. In March 2019 we intervened in support of the appeal against Ineos’ injunction. The Court of Appeal found that Ineos’ injunction was unlawful. We've also challenged UKOG's very similar injunction, alongside the Sussex and Surrey 6, and together, we've reduced this injunction, and stood up for the right to protest. The Sussex and Surrey 6 are going back to the High Court for a full trial on the current facts, in order to further attack this injunction.
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