The Aftermath of Successful Planning Claims

Abstract

There is a risk that even a successful public law claim will lead ultimately to the same decision being reached when the decision redetermines it. This may fuel concerns that public law is pointless, that claimant lawyers are merely seeking to delay the inevitable, or that lawyers are the only true winners from public law. This chapter investigates the scale of this risk, in the context of planning decisions. It describes the aftermath of planning claims which lead to a decision being quashed following a judgment of a court, and shows that, in well over half of such cases, there is a positive outcome for the claimant.