R Thomas Langton v Secretary of State for Environment Food and Rural Affairs
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mrs Justice Whipple |
| Judgment Date | 25 September 2018 |
| Neutral Citation | [2018] EWHC 3828 (Admin) |
| Docket Number | CO/5921/2017 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Date | 25 September 2018 |
[2018] EWHC 3828 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Mrs Justice Whipple
CO/5921/2017
CO/4848/2017
APPEARANCES
Mr B Turney and Mr B Fulbrook (instructed by Richard Buxton Environmental & Public Law) appeared on behalf of the Claimant.
Mr P Luckhurst (instructed by Legal Department, Natural England) appeared on behalf of the Second Defendant.
Sir Ross Cranston handed down judgment (the main judgment) in this case on 15 August 2018. He dismissed this claim for judicial review subject to the claimant's then outstanding application to amend the grounds. I am now asked to adjudicate that application to amend the grounds and to consider the consequential application for permission for judicial review on those amended grounds. That application is dated 5 June 2018. The respondent has filed a response dated 17 September 2018.
There are two main issues for me to determine at this stage: first, should I permit an amendment to the grounds at all; and secondly, if I do permit the amendment, should I grant permission to the claimant to argue the amended grounds in what will, in effect, be a fresh hearing?
Amendment
The application is dated 5 June 2018. The claimant argues that it could only be advanced consequent on disclosure by Natural England (“NE”) on 20 March 2018. When NE (defendant to this claim) received the application in June it applied for an adjournment of the substantive hearing which was by then listed for July 2018. Everyone agreed that it was not possible to include in the July 2018 hearing the subject matter of these additional grounds because they are too extensive. In the event, the hearing in July 2018 was not adjourned but the position was reached that that hearing would go ahead to determine the grounds that then existed and the amendment application was held over until afterwards. Thus, this is a peculiar case where the application to amend post-dates the substantive hearing.
The substance of the amended grounds is a detailed analysis of the SSSIs which are within or close to the culled areas, together with an analysis of the mitigation measures which are raised to mitigate damage or effect by culling. Of course, it would have been much better if the amendment had been raised in time for the court to deal with everything together in July 2018. But I have to accept that that was not possible, and I have to accept that the lateness is a consequence of the way in which the disclosure occurred late in the day, the amendment being consequential on that disclosure.
Taking into account all the arguments that I have heard, I conclude that it would be right in this case to exercise discretion to permit the claimant to advance the grounds by way of amendment at this stage. I should, however, say that I am concerned that the pleaded additional ground, as it was characterised on 5 June 2018, is not adequate to capture the new arguments as they now appear in the claimant's skeleton argument prepared for this hearing. I would wish before we leave today to impose some formality about determining what precisely is the content of the additional ground for which I have given permission to amend.
I turn to the permission issue, i.e. permission for judicial review. The amended ground asserts that NE is in breach of its statutory duties in failing to promote, conserve or prevent damage to some of the special features in the SSSIs which form part of or are close to the cull areas.
In the light of the main judgment, the claimant has accepted that some specifics of the amendment cannot be maintained, but there are still a number of areas where the claimant asserts a failure...
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R Thomas Langton v The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
...about costs and time and about the fact that this litigation has already had a significant amount of court time allocated to it”: [2018] EWHC 3828 (Admin), [11]. She underlined the need for every effort to be taken to ensure that the case was determined proportionately and without undue fu......