Packham loses HS2 challenge
RAIL: Chris Packham has lost a Court of Appeal bid to bring a legal challenge against the Government over the HS2 rail scheme.
The TV presenter argued there were failings in the way the Government reached its decision to give the project the go-ahead. Mr Packham said he was “deeply disappointed”.
CHRIS PACKHAM has lost a Court of Appeal bid to bring a legal challenge against the Government over the HS2 rail scheme.
The TV presenter argued there were failings in the way the Government reached its decision to give the project the go-ahead.
He took his fight to the Court of Appeal after being refused permission in April by two judges sitting in the High Court for a full judicial review. But in a ruling yesterday, three senior judges upheld the High Court’s decision and dismissed the claim.
In a statement, environmental campaigner Mr Packham said he was “deeply disappointed”.
Giving the court’s ruling, Lord Justice Lindblom said the court “rejected both of Mr Packham’s substantive grounds of appeal as unarguable”. The written judgment noted the “essential issues” in Mr Packham’s claim were “whether the Government erred in law by misunderstanding or ignoring local environmental concerns and failing to examine the environmental effects of HS2 as it ought to have done” and “whether the Government erred in law by failing to take account of the effect of the project on greenhouse gas emissions between now and 2050, in the light of the Government’s obligations under the Paris Agreement and the Climate Change Act 2008”.
At a hearing in July, lawyers for Mr Packham told the Court of Appeal a major review of the project gave a “very incomplete assessment of environmental matters”,
meaning the Government approved the scheme based on a “complete misapprehension” of the environmental cost.
Timothy Mould QC, barrister for the Government, argued that Mr Packham’s claim should be dismissed as it was “simply fanciful” to assume the Transport Secretary knew nothing about the public legislative and procedural history of HS2, including comprehensive assessment of environmental impacts undertaken.
In a statement yesterday, an HS2 spokesman said the company had taken its commitment to the environment “extremely seriously” from the outset.