Environmental Protection in UK Law

He was able to advise the Defendant Council, on the basis of his experience and expertise, that localised odour from manure spreading is short—lived where agricultural best practice takes place and that whilst stockpiled manure produces odour for a time until a crust forms thereafter there is little odour.

They must enable the reader to understand why the matter was decided as it was and what conclusions were reached on the "principal important controversial issues", disclosing how any issue of law or fact was resolved. The reasoning must not give rise to a substantial doubt as to whether the decision-maker erred in law, for example by misunderstanding some relevant policy or some other important matter or by failing to reach a rational decision on relevant grounds.

I have set out the required monitoring methodology in detail because it demonstrates, first, the extent of the operator's duty to monitor and, secondly, the close co-operation contemplated between the operator and the officers of the Environment Agency in achieving environmental protection. The procedure provided does not support a construction of 2.6.12 which gives the first and last word in determining whether a breach of condition has occurred to the officer of the Agency.

Second, the statute does not in terms require that a development must perform a preserving or enhancing function. The court is not here concerned with enhancement, but the ordinary meaning of "preserve" as a transitive verb is "to keep safe from harm or injury; to keep in safety, save, take care of, guard" (OED (2nd edn) Vol XII, P 404). In my judgment character or appearance can be said to be preserved where they are not harmed.

In my judgment, section 67(6) requires that, for the purposes of section 67(3), the application must be made strictly in accordance with paragraph 1. That is not to say that there is no scope for the application of the principle that the law is not concerned with very small things (de minimis non curat lex ). Indeed this principle is explicitly recognised in regulation 8(1) of the 1993 Regulations. Thus minor departures from paragraph 1 will not invalidate an application.

In my view, these statements show clearly that academic issues cannot and should not be determined by courts unless there are exceptional circumstances such as where two conditions are satisfied in the type of application now before the court.

Further, as outlined earlier in the judgment, the points raised by those such as the claimant and ZSL had been considered over the years prior to the consultation and in some cases rejected in favour of supplementary culling, which was seen as a logical extension of the existing policy. As the decision-maker in June 2017, the Secretary of State had already been provided with the draft consultation document and guidance at the time of the December 2016 submission.