Supreme Court to rule next week on environmental impact assessment and downstream greenhouse gas emissions

The Supreme Court will next week (20 June) hand down its ruling in a landmark case about environmental impact assessments and downstream greenhouse gas emissions.

The issue in R (on the application of Finch on behalf of the Weald Action Group) (Appellant) v Surrey County Council and others (Respondents) is whether under Directive 2011/92 EU of the European Parliament and of the Council and the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2017, it was unlawful for the council not to require the environmental impact assessment for a project of crude oil extraction for commercial purposes to include an assessment of the impacts of downstream greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the eventual use of the refined products of the extracted oil.

The background to the case was that in December 2018, the second respondent, Horse Hill Developments, sought planning permission from Surrey County Council, to retain and expand an existing onshore oil well site (comprising two wells) and to drill for four new wells, enabling the production of hydrocarbons from six wells over a period of 25 years.

The environmental impact assessment for the project considered the environmental impacts of "the direct releases of greenhouse gases from with the well site boundary resulting from the site's construction, production, decommissioning and subsequent restoration over the lifetime of the proposed development."

However, it did not assess the environmental impacts of the downstream greenhouse gas emissions that would inevitably result when the oil extracted from the development site was later refined and then used, for example, as fuel.

Surrey granted planning permission for the development on 27 September 2019.

The appellant applied for judicial review of the council's decision, acting on behalf of the Weald Action Group.

Her claim was unsuccessful before the High Court and the Court of Appeal. The appellant appealed to the Supreme Court.

Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, The Office for Environmental Protection and West Cumbria Mining intervened.

The case was heard by a panel comprising Lord Kitchin, Lord Sales, Lord Leggatt, Lady Rose and Lord Richards on 21-22 June 2023.