Jackson v Norfolk County Council
2014
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
UK
CORAM
- ELIZABETH COOKE
- Sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge
Areas of Law
- Administrative Law
- Environmental Law
2014
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
UK
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The case involves Peter Jackson's challenge to Norfolk County Council's approval of two traffic management schemes in Norwich. Jackson claims the Council failed to conduct proper environmental screening, consider noise and vibration impacts on nearby listed buildings, and improperly relied on uncertain traffic forecasts. The court found no grounds for judicial review, stating that the schemes did not require Environmental Impact Assessments, had adequately considered noise and vibration, and that the reliance on traffic models was not flawed.
Judgment
Elizabeth Cooke:
Introduction
This is a reserved judgment given after an oral hearing of the Claimant’s two renewed applications to seek judicial review, on 12 February 2014. The hearing lasted half a day, and I am very grateful to Mr Dove QC for the Claimant, and Mrs Townsend for the Defendant and the Interested Party, for their very clear and helpful argument.
The claimant is Peter Jackson, who lives in Norwich at 92-94 Upper St Giles Street in a building of architectural and historic interest.
The Defendant is Norfolk County Council, the highway authority for Norwich, and the interested party is Norwich City Council. Members of both councils sit on the Norwich Highway Agency Committee (NHAC) which took the two decisions sought to be reviewed in these proceedings, by the powers delegated to it by the highway authority. I refer for convenience therefore to decisions taken by the Defendant.
The decisions sought to be reviewed: the Grapes Hill scheme and the Chapel Field North Scheme
The two decisions sought to be reviewed relate to two schemes of traffic management and road works. The decisions were Traffic Regulation Orders made pursuant to the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 , and the Defendant’s power to make those orders, through the NHAC, is not called into question.
The two decision are:
the approval of the Grapes Hill scheme on 29 November 2012; and
the approval of the Chapel Field North scheme on 21 March 2013.
There have accordingly been two applications for judicial review. I am not going to rehearse their procedural history, save to say that on 15 July 2013 it was ordered by Stuart-Smith J that the two cases be managed together by the Court. Accordingly the renewed applications were listed and heard together and this order is made in both proceedings.
The two decisions in context
Grapes Hill and Chapel Field (or Chapelfield) North are roads in Norwich. The Google map helpfully shows that the north-west end of Chapel Field North is separated only by a roundabout from the south-east end of Grapes Hill. The claimant’s home, if I have understood the maps correctly, is adjacent or very close to Chapel Field North.
The schemes for the two roads are part of the Norwich Area Transport Strategy (“NATS”), a very wide-ranging programme of work which seeks – to put it very generally – to improve traffic flow within Norwich, both on the inner ring road (or Northern Distributor Road) and in the city centre. NATS has been the subject of