Intelligent Land Investments Group PLC, R (on the application of) v Gas and Electricity Markets Authority

Where a public authority invites representations before making an application decision and promises to consider them, procedural fairness ordinarily requires genuine consideration, not acceptance of the representations.

A Tameside challenge concerns whether reasonable enquiries were made. The court should not intervene merely because further enquiries might have been desirable. A public authority may determine the manner and intensity of its inquiry.

Where an application fails to meet a clearly notified deadline, the authority may first decide whether the deadline should be relaxed. It need not assess the substantive merits of late material before resolving that prior question. Public procurement principles of proportionality do not automatically transfer into ordinary public law.

The claimant applied to the defendant regulator for support under the Long Duration Energy Storage Cap and Floor Scheme. The application was required to include a financial model by 9 June 2025. The claimant omitted the model through error and supplied it in response to a later minded-to decision.

The defendant considered the claimant’s representations but refused to consider the model as late material and rejected the application. The claimant sought judicial review on grounds of procedural unfairness and failure to make proper inquiry or consider material factors. The hearing concerned both permission and, if permission were granted, the substantive claim.

1. Permission refused. The claimant’s representations had been carefully considered. Procedural fairness did not require the defendant to accept them. The relevant question was whether the representations were considered, not whether the substantive decision should have been different. The less exacting duty applicable to an application case did not alter that conclusion.
2. A Tameside challenge asks whether the public body took such reasonable steps to inform itself as were necessary. The public body decides the manner and intensity of the inquiry, subject to rationality review. The court should intervene only where no reasonable authority could have been satisfied that it possessed the information necessary for its decision.
3. The defendant had made the necessary inquiries. It invited representations addressing the apparent defects in the application and then possessed all the information on which the claimant wished to rely. No further inquiry was required before deciding whether late submission of the financial model should be permitted.
4. The claimant mischaracterised the decision. The issue was not simply whether the application satisfied the eligibility criteria on its merits. It was whether the claimant should be allowed to satisfy them after the clearly notified deadline. It was rational to decide that prior question before considering the contents of the late financial model or the application overall.
5. Public procurement authorities concerning clarification and proportionality did not govern the pleaded public law grounds. There was no automatic read-across between those legal frameworks. In any event, the importance of communicated deadlines and consistent treatment of bidders supported the defendant’s approach.
6. There were no free-standing public law principles of conspicuous or substantive unfairness. A substantive legitimate expectation would require a clear, unambiguous and unqualified representation of a substantive benefit. No such representation had been made.

The claim therefore had no realistic prospect of success and permission was refused.