Anonymised Summary of Judgment

Factual and Procedural Background

The Applicants sought judicial review of a planning permission granted to a data-centre development promoted by Company A (the notice party). The challenge raised climate-related objections under s.15 of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015 and statutory planning grounds under the Planning and Development Act 2000. The High Court heard the case in two substantive modules. In Module I the Court dismissed the Applicants' challenge (including a claim about a bat roost) and found any alleged inspector error harmless. In Module II the Applicants' case was also dismissed. The Applicants then applied for leave to appeal. The leave application was heard, the draft judgment was circulated to parties under the court's practice direction, and this reserved judgment refuses leave to appeal.

Legal Issues Presented

1. Whether a data-centre project that is conditioned to require Corporate Power Purchase Agreements (CPPAs) that offset on-site energy consumption can be regarded as a project "powered from renewable energy" for the purposes of s.15 Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015.
2. Whether recitation that a decision-maker "had regard to" the 2015 Act (and to the Climate Action Plan 2023) can satisfy the Commission's duty under s.15, and what evidential or demonstrative duty the Commission bears to show compliance.
3. Whether and how carbon budgets and sectoral emissions ceilings (as referenced in the Climate Action Plan 2023) must be addressed in a s.15(1) consistency analysis at the project level.

Arguments of the Parties

Applicants' Arguments

• Permission was inconsistent with s.15 because the project was not truly "powered from renewable energy" and CPPAs (as conditioned or as structured) did not adequately mitigate or render the project consistent with national climate instruments.
• The Commission's recital that it "had regard to" the 2015 Act / CAP 2023 did not demonstrate the required consistency and the decision-maker failed to meet the statutory duty.
• Macro-level instruments such as carbon budgets and sectoral emissions ceilings were not properly addressed at project level.

Respondent (the Commission)'s Arguments

• The Applicants misread isolated phrases in the judgment out of context; the judgment as a whole and the Inspector's report show substantive engagement and that CPPAs were conditioned and considered.
• Coolglass (Supreme Court) governs the evaluative spectrum available to decision-takers under s.15 and precludes automatic appellate intervention where settled law is applied to particular facts.
• The Applicants failed to plead or argue many of the new points now advanced (additionality, time-matching, proximity) and cannot raise them first in a leave application.

Company A (Notice Party)'s Arguments

• The project was conditioned so that CPPAs (as set out in the developer's submission) form part of the mitigation regime; the High Court correctly treated CPPAs as an offsetting measure.
• The Applicants' recharacterisation of the case in the leave application is opportunistic; the pleaded case was that no CPPA was conditioned and that point was rejected on the facts.
• The proposed appeal raises factual or mixed questions unsuited to leave and would cause further unjustified delay and prejudice to Company A.

Table of Precedents Cited

Court's Reasoning and Analysis

The Court analysed the leave application against statutory and established criteria for certification: the point must properly arise, be a point of law, be of exceptional public importance, and an appeal must be in the public interest. The Court found that:

• The Applicants repeatedly relied on isolated, preambular phrasing (e.g. "powered from renewables") read out of context. A holistic reading of the judgment, including the operative paragraphs and the Inspector's report, showed that CPPAs were treated as offsetting measures and were expressly considered.
• The Applicants' pleaded case was fundamentally that no CPPA condition existed; that central point was rejected at trial and the Applicants did not challenge that factual conclusion in the correct form. Many arguments now advanced (additionality, time-matching, proximity, or that CPPAs could never satisfy s.15) were not pleaded or argued below and were raised for the first time in the certificate submissions.
• Even if the preambular phrase were read literally, correcting that reading would not change the legal or factual outcome because Coolglass permits decision-takers to assess consistency on a net-emissions basis and to consider offsets such as CPPAs within an evaluative spectrum. Thus the alleged textual infelicity would not be determinative.
• The Court emphasised procedural obligations: parties must use the draft-judgment process to flag material errors; the Applicants failed to do so and cannot rely on that omission to manufacture grounds for appeal.
• On public-interest considerations the Court noted finality in planning law, the comprehensive scrutiny the project had already undergone, prejudice and irrecoverable delay to Company A, and that the Supreme Court's Coolglass judgment had recently settled the relevant legal framework, limiting the public interest in further appellate intervention.

Holding and Implications

Holding: The application for leave to appeal is DISMISSED.

Implications:

• The High Court's substantive orders dismissing the proceedings stand, including the operative recitals that conditions collectively require CPPAs as set out in the developer's response document.
• The Court reaffirmed that Coolglass constrains appellate intervention: questions about application of settled planning/climate law to particular facts are primarily for trial courts and generally unsuitable for certification.
• No order as to costs of the leave application, save that if a leapfrog to the Supreme Court is granted the costs of the leave application will be costs in that appeal; otherwise no order as to costs.
• The decision emphasises procedural obligations in draft-judgment engagement and discourages raising unpleaded or post-judgment reconfigurations of the case on leave applications.