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The High Court has granted a local resident permission to proceed with his claim for judicial review of the Home Secretary’s plans to accommodate up to 1700 asylum seekers at Wethersfield Airfield, alongside Braintree District Council’s challenge to the same decision and a challenge by West Lindsey District Council to similar plans at RAF Scampton.
The Home Secretary is relying for the development on a permitted development right authorising development by or on behalf of the Crown on Crown land in relation to an emergency for 12 months (under Class Q of Schedule 2, Part 19 of the General Permitted Development Order). Gabriel Clark-Holland, who lives adjacent to RAF Wethersfield, argues that the Home Secretary is not entitled to rely on this right because there is no “emergency” within the meaning of the General Permitted Development Order. He also argues that the right does not arise because it does not benefit from a lawful EIA screening direction, with the one produced by the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, who is joined as a second defendant, being defective.
On 14 July 2023, following a two-day permission hearing, Thornton J determined that the Class Q and EIA screening arguments were arguable and granted permission to all three claims. Braintree District Council was also granted permission on a third ground arguing that the decision was unlawful because it breached the public sector equality duty. Other proposed grounds of review made by the various claimants were dismissed as unarguable.
The claims will now proceed to a substantive hearing.
The case has been widely reported in the media, including BBC News, Sky News and The Guardian.
Mr Clarke-Holland is represented by Alex Goodman KC and Charles Bishop, instructed by Deighton Pierce Glynn Solicitors.
The Home Secretary is represented by Paul Brown KC, Nick Grant and Isabella Buono.
