A38 - Legal Challenge Decision

Transport Minister Grant Shapps has admitted that he acted unlawfully when he approved the A38 Derby Junctions road scheme in January. The High Court will now quash the planning permission for the scheme.

Shapps conceded that his decision to approve the road expansion breached Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) regulations by failing to provide a reasoned conclusion on the development’s cumulative climate impacts with other road schemes in meeting the UK’s national climate targets.

The High Court will now quash the Development Consent Order and the Department for Transport (DfT) will pay the legal costs of the legal challenge.

This is one of other road projects across the country that the Transport Secretary has had to retract.

It is possible that trees may still be cut down in preparation for an adjusted version of the scheme to go before the Transport Secretary and be granted planning permission which is possible if the adapted scheme did not breech UK’s climate targets.