We have previously reported on the challenge by Transport Action Network to the granting of the A66 Northern Trans-Pennine DCO. The hearing was on 23 October 2024 and the judge gave the judgment orally a mere two days later on 25 October 2024; it has taken since then to get hold of a copy of the judgment.

The first ground was on habitats, where socio-economic impacts were allegedly wrongly categorised as health impacts, and how did impacts on human health weigh neutrally in the planning balance in the decision letter and yet be enough to be imperative reasons of overriding public importance? The judge considered that enough attention was given to human health in the IROPI context and that it was not irrational to conclude that the test was met.

The second ground was on the impact on the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty – DCO applications that cause harm to AONBs should be refused unless there are exceptional circumstances and where consent is in the public interest. The judge said that the test was met and the precise words needn’t be used ‘like an incantation’. The impact on the AONB was in fact concluded to become acceptable over time. The new duties to ‘seek to further the purposes’ of National Parks and AONBs in s11A of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 and s85 of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, respectively, are the new battleground.

The third ground was essentially that the DCO should have been refused because the benefit-cost ratio was less than one. The judge decided it was not irrational for the Secretary of State to give consent, saying as he did that there were qualitative benefits that could not be monetised.

The fourth ground was the same as the single ground that was unsuccessful in the challenge to the A38 Derby Junctions DCO decision, namely that the decision was unlawfully based on an out-of-date economic assessment. The judge said that although the A38 case had been appealed to the Court of Appeal, he nevertheless had confidence in his judgment on the point. That permission has been denied, and so this ground is dropped from the claimant’s appeal to the Court of Appeal.