This was a judicial review about the environmental regulation of sludge when it is spread on farmland. 

The issue at the centre of the claim was whether the Environment Agency’s decision to remove a target date for implementing its Sludge Strategy – which proposed to move the regulation of the spreading of sludge into the Environmental Permitting regime – without identifying a replacement target date, was reasonable in public law terms, in particular, where the implementation was reliant on legislation which could only be put forward by the Secretary of State.

The Claimant was campaign group set up by three well-known environmental campaigners: Georgia Elliott-Smith, an environmental engineer and Chartered Environmentalist; George Monbiot, a journalist and activist; and Steve Hynd, the Policy Manager at the not-for-profit ‘City to Sea’ which campaigns to stop plastic pollution. The case has been subject to much publicity raising awareness on the issue.

The judge dismissed the claim, finding that the Environment Agency had not acted unlawfully. 

The judge held that in not replacing the target date, the Environment Agency had acted within the reasonable range of actions open to it given: (1) there was no statutory requirement to provide a target date (the judge noting that it is not unusual for statements of policy intention not to set out a timetable because of the various pressures of Government which makes it difficult to be specific as to timings); (2) the necessary legislative powers reside not with the Environment Agency but the Secretary of State; (3) this was not an emergency, there was regulation in place and the scientific understanding of the issues was emerging; (4) the Claimant’s characterisation of the decision not to include a new target date as being a decision to do nothing was incorrect, the Sludge Strategy was unchanged in substance and specifically rejects do nothing; (5) there is a bigger picture, the Secretary of State has to balance resources and prioritise policies which issues are not for the Court; (6) the Environment Agency had been working collaboratively with the Secretary of State and the decision not to reinstate a target date reflected the preference of the Secretary of State not to be specific; and (7) the Environment Agency did not have the basis for selecting a new target date given the legislative powers lay with the Secretary of State.

The Judgment is worth reading closely for what it says on the approach to intensity of review in environmental cases (see paragraphs 29 to 35).

Mark Westmoreland Smith KC appeared for the Defendant, the Environment Agency.

Ned Westaway appeared for the Interested Party, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.