Thread by @MichaelDnes1

@SamCoatesSky was expressing his astonishment yesterday on Sky News that the PM had singled out one judicial review applicant to blame for the legal challenges bedevilling infrastructure projects.

Let’s fix that 😈

Here’s a story that starts with a man shut in his cellar.

(I believe the reason the PM identified the man he did is because he doesn’t have any live court cases. Where someone does (and this person always does) it would risk forcing a mistrial

Not a limit on me - obviously)

Simon Norton was a genius – one of the most gifted mathematicians of the twentieth century. That came at a cost – later retold in The Genius in my Basement.

After years of brilliant work, he could be found in a cellar filled with unwashed plates, obsessing over bus timetables.

He loved buses. Truly, madly, deeply. His idea of a just world was one where a person could travel to every National Trust property by bus.

Which may be the most English thing ever.

He was also rich – his family owned one of London’s oldest and fanciest jewellers.

And when he died in 2019, he left his fortune to a minor transport charity he’d set up – the Foundation for Integrated Transport.

theguardian.com/education/2019…

For a man called Chris Todd, this was timely,

For several years, Chris had worked at the UK’s leading sustainable transport charity – the Campaign for Better Transport

And he thought they were melts.

Chris thought CBT should be suing the pants off of government. Especially for their big road-building plans (that’s me!)

He and the CBT parted ways; with Chris planning to set up a new activist group – Transport Action Network.

That would probably have been a pipe dream, were Simon Norton still alive. But instead, his legacy was now at the Foundation for Integrated Transport, burning a hole in their pocket.

Chris applied for a grant. They gave him £60k initially. Four grants later, it’s now over £400k.

(You might ask ‘how does funding a campaign to sue the government repeatedly’ square with the FIT’s stated charity goal of promoting bus networks. That’s one for the Charity Commission. Perhaps the lawyers take their fees in travel cards)

And now it was game on!

Almost as soon as the money hit TAN’s account, they were off to sue the roadbuilders.

And lost.

They would lose. They argued that extra carbon emissions were incompatible with net zero, and required the whole programme to be halted.

The total emissions were 0.0016% of carbon budget 5. And that was before the 2040 EV switchover was included.

(❤️our snarky judge too)

It’s a good thing they lost too.

You might say ‘roads are bad’! Fair enough.

But lots of government programmes raise emissions.

Had they won, the precedent would have killed the winter fuel allowance for starters.

The case was also thrown out as early as it could be.

A judicial review has to gain ‘standing’ in order to be heard – basically there needs to be evidence that the case has any chance of success to be worth the court’s attention.

They failed at that. Brutally.

But that didn’t discourage Mr Todd

Having taken us to court, he now declared that “Our English legal system is failing the public good, and puts deference before decarbonisation”

And then took DfT to court again

And again.

And again.

And again.

And again. 6 times in 4 years

Mr Todd loses every one. But that’s not the point.

First, every case has its crowd funder. That’s as much as £70k for the bank.

(Extra-juicy, because the Aarhus convention caps damages at £10k)

Second, every case gets lovely media coverage – ‘planners bad’ when started and ‘sad defeat for plucky campaigners’ when chucked out.

You can't buy advertising this good

Third – Mr Todd has perfected a neat tactic.

Launch a judicial review _just before construction starts_ and demand the courts delay the project while the case is heard.

This has delayed £2-3bn worth of projects

The A428 near Cambridge – which has 90% local support

The A66 Trans-Pennine – the first upgraded link across the Pennines in fifty years, also with 90% support

Both challenges dismissed as rapidly as the courts would allow. And then that dismissal appealed as slowly as possible

Every passing month sees teams idle and cost inflation biting harder.

Lord Banner put the price of a typical delay at £66-121m per project, but these are big ones.

I’d estimate about £200-300m of extra public costs on those two schemes. Which still get built.

I suspect, in Chris’ mind, that’s a quarter-billion less for other road projects – so quite the triumph.

Not bad, for one man’s dream and £60k of starter funding.

And they’re just getting started.

When the first challenge came, and I saw how thin it was, I told a colleague – if people misuse the law like this, one day the law will end up changing.

And the PM – a career human rights lawyer – seems to agree.

And, TBH, this is just.

Judicial review is a crucial protection of our civil liberties. Not a back door for people who can't win democratic support for their beliefs.

Time to put the laws back to public use, not private agendas.