Getting Britain Building: Reforming Judicial Review for Infrastructure

Building a modern, competitive and resilient economy demands that we get better and faster at delivering the infrastructure required to power it. The Government made infrastructure delivery a defining mission, backed by landmark reforms and sustained investment in the planning system. Given the challenges facing the world economy, and the scale of what we need to build, the Government now intends to go further in ensuring that legal challenge is focused, proportionate and does not create unnecessary delay to the delivery of nationally important infrastructure.

This paper sets out two proposed reforms to the current process for consenting major infrastructure – subject to detailed design and the passage of underpinning legislation – which would allow for proportionate protection from judicial review: a parliamentary authorisation mechanism; and a challenge window mechanism.