The High Court has dismissed an application for judicial review by a pressure group seeking to quash the Environment Agency’s decision to grant an environmental permit to an operator for an energy from waste facility in Bedfordshire

In the case of Baci Bedfordshire Ltd v Environment Agency[2018] EWHC 2962, 6 November 2018, the grounds of review were that the permit was issued based on a factual mistake in the application for the permit about the discharge of heavy metals from the incinerator bottom ash which the NGO argued gave rise to a risk of unmonitored discharges of toxic dissolved heavy metals in breach of the Industrial Emissions Directive 2010 and the English permitting legislation which transposes that Directive.

The High Court dismissed the claim, on the evidence, because it found that the EA had not relied upon the mistake when issuing the permit. The Court stated that it was implausible that the EA, with its experience and knowledge, had made a mistake or adopted the application’s error.

The case reminds us that it is very difficult to get the courts to overrule decisions of environmental authorities unless there is a clear error of law.