ARMSTRONGS AGGREGATES LIMITED v NATURAL ENGLAND

Procedural exclusivity is a narrow abuse-of-process principle. It prevents a claimant from using an ordinary claim to circumvent safeguards which would apply to judicial review, including requirements concerning delay and adequate alternative remedies.

Where a statutory appeal provides an adequate route for resolving the relevant legal and factual issues, judicial review will generally be refused and the alternative process should run its course. A later judicial review remains available where necessary, particularly once regulatory action and its effects have crystallised.

The claimant operated a quarry in a Site of Special Scientific Interest under an extant deemed planning permission. Natural England issued environmental damage notices under the Environmental Damage (Prevention and Remediation) (England) Regulations 2015. Statutory appeals against those notices were pending.

The claimant issued a Part 8 claim seeking declarations concerning the applicability and invocability of the 2015 Regulations in light of the right to property under A1P1. Natural England applied for an extension of time, a ruling that the court should not exercise its jurisdiction, and strike-out for abuse of process. The central issue was whether the Part 8 claim improperly bypassed the statutory appeals and the safeguards applicable to judicial review.

1. Disposition. The retrospective one-day extension of time was granted. The Part 8 claim was struck out as an abuse of process and dismissed. The regulation 19 appeals were to run their course.
2. Procedural exclusivity. The court had power or authority to try the claim. The real question was whether it should exercise that jurisdiction. Procedural exclusivity is a focused principle protecting safeguards attached to judicial review. It applies where an ordinary claim would circumvent or flout protections which would have led to refusal of permission, including delay, alternative remedy or an academic claim.
3. Adequate alternative remedy. The statutory appeals were an adequate alternative remedy. They could address the claimant’s arguments concerning A1P1, the interpretation and application of the 2015 Regulations, environmental damage, causation and fault. They might be dispositive, and the claimant was not shut out from seeking judicial review later if necessary. The High Court should not determine the A1P1 issues in a regulatory vacuum before the consequences of any further regulatory action were concrete.
4. Delay. A judicial review claim issued in October 2021 would have shown a conspicuous lack of promptness. An extension of time would have been required, and the substantial progress of the statutory appeals created prejudice. The combination of delay, alternative remedy and the costs and disruption caused by switching to court proceedings made the delay objection irresistible.
5. Shield letters. Obiter, the court indicated that a claimant uncertain about the correct timing of judicial review may write candidly to the public authority and interested parties, identifying the proposed grounds and seeking agreement that time will not run until an alternative procedure is completed. Such correspondence may support a later extension of time and protect the claimant against a delay objection.
6. Costs. Natural England was awarded its costs on the standard basis, subject to specified exceptions for costs caused by its own procedural mistakes.

First-instance decision. The judgment records that the claimant’s statutory appeals against the environmental damage notices were pending before the relevant appellate decision-maker; those appeals were to continue.