The UK Supreme Court held Thursday that Surrey’s planning authorities acted unlawfully when granting planning permission for an oil well development in 2019. The court ruled that the authorities should have considered certain environmental impacts when making the decision.

The three-to-two decision of the five justices allowed the appeal of a previous resident of Surrey, Sarah Finch. Finch argued that Surrey County Council’s decision to grant planning permission to Horse Hill Developments failed to meet legal requirements. Under the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2017 (EIA), an environmental impact assessment must be carried out for proposed developments to determine if they should be built. In their assessment for the Horse Hill well development, Surrey County Council failed to assess the impact of greenhouse gas emissions that would result from future use of the oil extracted from the wells. While Horse Hill Developments argued this was not a direct result and therefore was irrelevant to the impact assessment, the justices held that these environmental impacts were “inevitable,” as the oil extracted would later be burned, releasing greenhouse gases. These further emissions had not been considered when granting planning permission, and Surrey County Council had, therefore, acted unlawfully.

This case was previously heard in the High Court in 2022, where justices held that future combustion emissions were not within the scope of the EIA and that Surrey County Council had given legally valid reasons for not considering these impacts in their assessment. However, the Supreme Court disagreed with this and ruled favor of Finch.

Finch, who was acting on behalf of the environmental organization the Weald Action Group, celebrated the result of the case, stating:

I am absolutely over the moon to have won this important case … This is a welcome step towards a safer, fairer future. The oil and gas companies may act like business-as-usual is still an option, but it will be very hard for planning authorities to permit new fossil fuel developments – in the Weald, the North Sea, or anywhere else – when their true climate impact is clear for all to see.

This case is likely to create new precedent for developers to consider in future development proposals. Environmental group Friends of the Earth, who supported Finch as an intervenor in this case, stated that “[g]oing forwards, it will be harder for fossil fuel promoters to get consent for their project.” It is thought that the UK government’s approval of a new coal mine in Cumbria in December 2022 could well be affected by this ruling.