Berkeley v. Secretary of State for the Environment [2001] 2 AC 603
Citation:Berkeley v. Secretary of State for the Environment [2001] 2 AC 603
Rule of thumb:When do environmental impact assessments have to be done during planning? For any major development, public or private, an environmental impact assessment has to be done.
Background facts:
The basic facts were that planning permission was granted for a new football ground for Fulham FC.
Judgment:
The Court affirmed that this was a major private development which there required there to be an environmental impact assessment done. The Court affirmed that no large project can go ahead without this being done as it is a clear breach of statute.
Ratio-decidendi:
‘... If no reasonable Secretary of State could have considered that the Club's application was a Schedule 2 application, the judge would of course have been entitled to rule that no EIA could have been required. But Mr. Elvin does not so contend. It is arguable that the development was an "urban development project" within paragraph 10(b) of Schedule 2 and the conflicting evidence on the potential effect on the river is enough in itself to show that it was arguably likely to have significant effects on the environment. In those circumstances, individuals affected by the development had a directly enforceable right to have the need for an EIA considered before the grant of planning permission by the Secretary of State and not afterwards by a judge... 8. Does it matter that an EIA would not have affected the decision? I said in Reg. v. North Yorkshire County Council, Ex parte Brown [2000] 1 A.C. 397, 404; [1999] 2 W.L.R. 452, 458, that the purpose of the Directive was "to ensure that planning decisions which may affect the environment are made on the basis of full information." This was a concise statement, adequate in its context, but which needs for present purposes to be filled out. The Directive requires not merely that the planning authority should have the necessary information, but that it should have been obtained by means of a particular procedure, namely that of an EIA. And an essential element in this procedure is that what the Regulations call the "environmental statement" by the developer should have been "made available to the public" and that the public should have been "given the opportunity to express an opinion" in accordance with article 6.2 of the Directive. Lord Hoffman
Warning: This is not professional legal advice. This is not professional legal education advice. Please obtain professional guidance before embarking on any legal course of action. This is just an interpretation of a Judgment by persons of legal insight & varying levels of legal specialism, experience & expertise. Please read the Judgment yourself and form your own interpretation of it with professional assistance.