The 2015 Lord Chief Justice report was laid before Parliament on 13 January, and included a summary of the work of the Planning Court, a intended as a ‘reform… to remove unmeritorious statutory challenges to planning decisions as early as possible’, which has ‘greatly increased the speed in which planning cases were dealt with’.
The report states:
The establishment of the Planning Court, as reported last year, resulted in new procedures which greatly increased the speed in which planning cases were dealt with.
At the end of October 2015 the time from lodging to substantive hearing had reduced to 27.3 weeks, down from 46.9 weeks in February 2014. The number of live planning cases (both ‘significant’ and non-’significant’) at the end of October 2015 stood at 222. This represents a significant reduction in the number of live cases, which, at the end of 2013, stood at 314. Additionally, the Criminal Courts and Justice Act 2015 introduced a permission stage in applications for statutory review and the Civil Procedure Rules have been amended to set out the procedure for statutory challenges, largely reflecting the procedure for judicial review.
The main purpose of this reform was to remove unmeritorious statutory challenges to planning decisions as early as possible, and thus to avoid the delays and the pressure on the resources of the Planning Court entailed in such proceedings.
View the full report
