Legal and planning

A legal challenge to Surrey County Council’s decision to allow 20 years of oil drilling and production to take place near Gatwick airport begins in the High Court today (17.11.20)

Learn about the legal and planning system and find out how you can have your say on decisions about your local area.

What are civil liberties and how are they affected by the coronavirus pandemic?

The legal team at Friends of the Earth has been instrumental in major wins like the fight against fracking and stopping Heathrow expansion. Support their work.

"Injunctions such as that granted to Cuadrilla, raise very significant human rights issues and are a sinister attempt to use the law to stop peaceful protest against the fracking industry."

Friends of the Earth made an intervention at the Court of Appeal to support the right to peaceful protest. We supported the appeals brought by Joe Corré, activist and fashion designer, and Joe Boyd, who are challenging a wide-ranging and draconian attempt from the UK's biggest oil and gas company Ineos to stop so-called ‘unlawful’ protests at their sites.

Environmental campaign group Friends of the Earth are challenging the government’s National Planning Policy Framework in the High Court tomorrow (18 December). The group argues that the framework was unlawfully adopted without any regard to environmental impacts and is concerned over the risks the framework poses to our climate and environment.

The government failed to carry out a strategic environmental assessment (SEA) on its new planning rules putting our climate and environment at risk.