Nicholas Ostrowski representing the Office for Environmental Protection in the Court of Appeal

October 21, 2024

Nicholas Ostrowski

The Office for Environmental Protection has been granted permission by the Court of Appeal to intervene in the appeal of the decision of Lieven J in R (on the application of Pickering Fishery Association by Martin Smith) v Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs [2023] EWHC 2918 (Admin).

In this case the High Court determined that the Secretary of State acted unlawfully in approving the Humber River Basin Management Plan under the Water Framework Directive Regulations. The Secretary of State and the Environment Agency have appealed and the Court of Appeal will consider whether planned programmes of measures to achieve the environmental objectives for the Upper Costa Beck water body in North Yorkshire were sufficient to meet the requirements of the Water Framework Directive Regulations.

The Office for Environmental Protection has been granted permission to intervene in the appeal because the decision has wide ramifications about what level of detail the Environment Agency and the Secretary of State should include in the programmes of measures which are prepared for water bodies and whether those programmes of measures should include information which is specific to each water body specific or which is merely generic.

The outcome of this appeal will have significant implications for the way in which the Environment Agency drafts and the Secretary of State approves River Basin Management Plans which are a critical tool in ensuring the health of water bodies in the UK. The importance of the issue is reflected in the fact that this is only the second such application the OEP has made.

Further information about the appeal can be found here.

Nicholas Ostrowski acts on behalf of the OEP.