UK High Court finds Government Air Quality Plan in breach of earlier Supreme Court ruling

The UK High Court recently ruled against the UK government over its failure to tackle illegal air pollution across the UK. The High Court ruled that the UK government’s 2015 Air Quality Plan was in breach not only with the Supreme Court ruling but with relevant EU Directives as well and supported ClientEarth’s claim that the UK government failed to comply were not rectifying these changes in accordance to the required urgency.

Readers may recall a previous PILA Bulletin featured ClientEarth’s strategic litigation campaign aimed at tackling air ongoing pollution in Europe for non-compliance with the EU Air Quality Directive (the ‘Directive’) (click here). The EU Air Quality Directive aims to reduce exposure to polluted air which holds significant health risks to humans by implementing limits on ambient nitrogen dioxide in Member States. The UK government has been involved in non-compliance cases regarding air pollution over the past six years. This is the second case in the last two years the UK government has lost on its failure to improve air pollution. 

By way of background, in April 2015, ClientEarth won a Supreme Court case against the UK government which ordered officials to derive a strategy in order to lower air pollution within legal limits “as soon as possible”. The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs "DEFRA" created an air quality plan which was projected emissions over five year intervals. This plan however, would not be addressed until 2020 and was subsequently deemed insufficient as well as inefficient. ClientEarth then challenged the government in the High Court in a judicial review over breach of its obligations to comply with the nitrogen dioxide limits. 

The High Court Judge criticized, “[the] principal driving factor in selecting 2020 was not the obligation to remedy the problem as soon as possible but to remedy it in time to avoid EU infraction proceedings”.  The EU Directive does not allow member states to take cost into considerations as health and safety of the public is the number one priority. 

Click here for the previous PILA Bulletin feature on ClientEarth’s strategic litigation. 

Click here for full judgement.

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