The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds v Secretary of State for Environment Food and Rural Affairs
2014
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
UK
CORAM
- MR JUSTICE MITTING
Areas of Law
- Environmental Law
2014
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
UK
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
In this environmental law case, BAE Systems faced risks from gulls at its Warton facility, leading to a request to cull the birds to mitigate these risks. Natural England granted partial consent for culling, which led to a public inquiry and an appeal resulting in the Secretary of State authorizing a larger cull. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds challenged this decision, focusing on legal entitlement and conservation objectives. The court dismissed the challenge, supporting the Secretary of State's decision based on proper assessment and rational judgment.
Judgment
MR JUSTICE MITTING :
The River Ribble rises in Yorkshire and flows into the Irish Sea between Lytham St Annes and Southport. The River Alt rises in Huyton and flows into the Irish Sea at the edge of the Mersey Estuary. Part of the Ribble Estuary was identified as a National Nature Reserve in 1979 and notified as a Site of Special Scientific Interest under Section 28 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 in 1984. It was classified as special protection area under Council Directive 79/409/EEC in 1982. The Alt River Estuary was similarly classified in 1985. The two estuaries were jointly classified as a special protection area in February 1995. It was re-designated and its area extended on 28 November 2002. It now comprises 12,412.31 hectares. It is a habitat for a large number of different species of bird. Amongst them are two large gulls: the Lesser Black-backed Gull and the Herring Gull. This case concerns only those gulls and that part of the special protection area which lies within the Ribble Estuary. Both gulls breed there. A reasonable working estimate of the numbers of breeding pairs in the Ribble Estuary in recent years is 4,100 pairs of Lesser Black-backed Gull and, until the recent cull, 500 pairs of Herring Gull. They nest in an extensive area of sand mud flats and saltmarsh on the left, south, bank of the Ribble.
On the right bank of the Ribble, to the north and east of that area is the aerodrome and manufacturing and research facility operated by BAE Systems (Operations) Limited (“British Aerospace”) at Warton. British Aerospace and its predecessors have occupied the site since 1947. It is their principal UK facility for developing, manufacturing and testing military aircraft. Bird strike is an unavoidable occurrence. Small birds do not cause significant damage to aircraft; but large birds – those weighing more than 1kg – can do. The principal risk is that of ingestion into an aircraft jet engine. In the case of a single-engined aircraft, such as a Hawk, ingestion can lead to sudden total loss of power, requiring the pilot to eject and the aircraft to crash. The risk has been measured statistically. At Warton the annual frequency of the risk of damage to an aircraft sufficient to cause loss of service for a period of weeks has been assessed at 1 in 12.5 years and of aircraft loss associated with pilot ejection at 1 in 808 years. There is a national standard for yet more catastrophic loss, causing pilot fatality. That is set by th