High Court quashes Government's decision to grant planning permission for incinerator in St. Dennis, Cornwall
Thursday 27th October 2011
Cornwall Waste Forum St Dennis Branch v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, unreported
The High Court has recently quashed a decision to grant planning permission to a £117m incinerator project, which would have been capable of burning up to 240,000 tonnes of household waste a year, after a challenge the St Dennis Anti-incinerator Group - a group of local residents.
The proposed site of the incinerator was next to two protected Special Areas of Conservation, and it was the Secretary of State's role under EU Regulations to carry out an impact assessment of the incinerator on these Special Areas of Conservation.
The planning inspector granted planning permission on the basis that the Environment Agency had issued a pollution control permit and that the Environment Agency would not have done so if an appropriate assessment had been necessary.
The Court held that the planning inspector had erred in considering that air quality issues from the construction of the incinerator was a matter that the Environment Agency could be left to decide on and that he was not also required to consider whether an assessment was necessary. The local campaigners had a legitimate expectation that the Secretary of State and his inspector should act as the decision maker in that regard.
