In R ( FRIENDS OF WEST OXFORDSHIRE COTSWOLDS ) v WEST OXFORDSHIRE DC ( 2024 ) EWHC 2291 ( Admin ) there are applied the GENERAL PRINCIPLE ( BODDINGTON ) that, once pronounced unlawful by a Court, an administrative act is recognized as never having had legal effect, and the GENERAL PRINCIPLE ( WHITLEY ) that where operations do not comply with a planning permission , read together with its conditions, they would be unauthorised and unlawful. The Court states the conditions for the latter principle to apply.

R (HALTON BC) v SoS (2024) EWHC 2030 (Admin) involved a costs order made against the local planning authority pursuant to Section 250 in the Local Government Act 1972 after its expert witness failed to come up to proof during cross-examination at a called-in public inquiry resulting in the inquiry process being aborted.  Fordham J set out the following key points from the judicial review case law:-

1. The judicial review Court could intervene in the exercise of its supervisory jurisdiction where the costs decision-maker had materially misdirected themselves, or the decision was unreasonable in a public law sense;
2. Clear and intelligible reasons had to be given for the decision;
3. The decision letter had to be read straightforwardly and as a whole;
4. The decision as to costs involved a wide statutory power vested in the costs decision-maker: decision was not unreasonable because a different decision-maker might have taken a different view, or because there was room for significant disagreement;
5. There was a clear distinction between interpretation of policy (appropriate for judicial analysis on an objective correctness standard) and application of policy (an exercise of judgment for the primary decision-maker subject to a reasonableness standard);
6. Public law unreasonableness meant that the decision was outside the range of reasonable decisions open to the decision-maker, or there was a demonstrable flaw in their reasoning;
7. The Courts should respect the expertise of specialist planning decision-makers;
8. A decision-maker could depart from policy guidance if clear reasons were given;
9. The reasons had to be intelligible and adequate: Decision Letters should be read in a straightforward manner recognising that they were addressed to parties well aware of the issues involved and arguments advanced: their conclusions should not be laboriously directed in an effort to find fault.

EIAs are not on obstacle course for decision-makers. The purpose of an EIA is to improve environmental decision-making. The significance of an impact for assessment purposes is not legally distinct from that for determination purposes. So held in R ( Boswell ) v SoS ( 2024 ) EWHC 2128 ( Admin ).

Environmental judicial review cases can attract a closer intensity of reasonableness review. There is however no rigid test for a uniformly heightened scrutiny. So held in R ( Fighting Dirty ) v Environment Agency ( 2024 ) EWHC 2029 ( Admin ).