Strengthening the Judicial Review Process

The Planning and Development Act 2024 introduces important reforms to make the planning judicial review process faster, fairer, and more transparent.

Key Changes

• Clearer and streamlined process for judicial reviews.
• Safeguards against spurious objections and appeals.
• Ban on payments for not opposing development.
• Judicial review periods won’t count towards planning permission duration, so valid permissions don’t expire due to delays.
• Extension of planning permissions close to expiry where appropriate.

Costs and Access to Justice

• A new scale of fees will be introduced.
• Measures will ensure costs are not prohibitively expensive, in line with the Aarhus Convention.
• This will make costs fair for applicants while maintaining access to justice.

Next Steps

These reforms will be implemented through secondary legislation by the Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment in the coming months.

Why It Matters:

These changes will reduce delays, improve certainty, and lower costs—helping deliver vital housing and infrastructure faster.