JUSTICE Responds to Consultation on Judicial Review Reforms: Beyond Nationally Significant Infrastructure

In August 2026, JUSTICE submitted its response to the Ministry of Justice consultation on extending reforms to the judicial review process for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) to other planning regimes in England and Wales.

Following an independent review by Lord Banner KC and a call for evidence, the government took forward a number of reforms to the judicial review process for NSIPs in 2025.

The MoJ consultation asks whether the paper planning permission stage and the right of appeal for "totally without merit" cases should be removed for "other planning decisions" and, if so, whether the change should be limited to "major infrastructure projects" and other "strategically important developments."

While the Banner Review was a serious piece of analysis from a legal expert, containing statistical evidence, we are concerned that it did not contain sufficient evidence to justify reducing the permission stage for judicial review claims to a single attempt, by removing the paper permission stage and right of appeal.

Crucially, for the purposes of this consultation, it did not provide an evidence base for wider judicial review reform, as it was concerned with NSIPs .

There has been no further review of planning judicial review and there is no evidence in this consultation which matches the work done by Lord Banner. The evidence of one case, the identified Stonestreet Green case (itself an NSIP claim relating to an important solar project), is clearly in sufficient to identify whether the NSIP reforms have been a success, let alone justify much wider reform to planning judicial review.  

JUSTICE does not support the proposal to reduce the permission stage, by removing either the paper permission stage or the right of appeal, in wider planning judicial review claims. There is no evidence to support such a change. It would be inefficient, set a dangerous precedent for the future of judicial review reform, and undermine the Government's stated commitment to access for justice and the rule of law.

Read the response in full here.