Hamble Parish Council fails in High Court bid to overturn Cemex gravel extraction approval

The High Court has refused permission for Hamble Parish Council to bring a judicial review challenge against a planning inspector's decision to allow Cemex UK Operations Ltd to extract sand and gravel from the former Hamble Airfield in Hampshire.

In Hamble Parish Council v Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government & Ors [2026] EWHC 2138 (Admin), Mr Justice Chamberlain dismissed all three grounds of challenge brought under section 288 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, upholding a renewed application after Lang J had already refused permission on the papers.

Cemex's application had originally been refused by Hampshire County Council before an inspector, Stephen Normington, allowed the appeal following a public inquiry at which the Hamble Peninsular Defence Group, of which the parish council is a constituent member, argued that adverse effects on nearby European and Ramsar sites could not be ruled out to the requisite standard.

Much of the dispute turned on hydrology. Evidence from the objectors suggested the site's river terrace deposits currently sustain a "shallow" hydrograph feeding local streams over an extended period, and that extraction would replace this with a "steep" hydrograph discharging water far more rapidly, potentially harming habitats reliant on sustained freshwater flows into protected sites. Natural England had initially proceeded on the mistaken understanding that the Lincegrove and Hackett's Marshes SSSI lay beyond Badnam Creek, when in fact the creek forms part of the site itself.

The parish council argued, first, that the inspector breached his Tameside duty by failing to ask Natural England directly whether it had reconsidered its position in light of this error, or whether it had properly engaged with the inquiry evidence. Chamberlain J rejected this, noting that the only statutory duty was to consult Natural England, which had occurred, and that a failure to gather further evidence would only be unlawful if irrational. Given that the inquiry was livestreamed and all documents were publicly accessible, and that the inspector had reached independent findings on hydrology regardless of Natural England's position, the procedural approach taken fell well within the range open to him.

The second ground concerned reliance on R (Morge) v Hampshire County Council, which the council argued had wrongly led the inspector to treat Natural England's lack of objection as raising a presumption against adverse effects. The judge found the inspector had only drawn from Morge the point that Natural England's advice merited significant weight, a proposition the claimant's counsel accepted was correct, and that the inspector had in any event conducted his own independent assessment of the competing expert evidence.

On the third ground, that the inspector's conclusion on the absence of reasonable scientific doubt was irrational, the judge applied the principles from Bloor Homes East Midlands Ltd v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, finding the inspector's reasoning, spanning detailed findings on flow rates, seasonal variation and catchment proportions, to be full and adequately explained. The inspector's twin conclusions, that any hydrological change was unlikely to be material and that even a material change would not adversely affect the integrity of the protected sites, were both properly open to him.

Permission to apply for judicial review was accordingly refused on all grounds.