Petition for Judicial Review in which Trump International sought to challenge the Scottish Government’s decision to grant permission for an offshore wind farm near its golf resort at Menie in Aberdeenshire[1].
Trump argued that the Scottish Government:
- should have held a public inquiry before reaching its decision; and
- should not have granted consent in terms of s36 of the Electricity Act 1989 as the wind farm developer did not hold a licence to generate electricity.
Public inquiry
Trump contended that the Scottish Government’s failure to hold a public inquiry would raise in the mind of the fair-minded and informed observer a real possibility that the decision-maker was biased.
S36 argument
Trump founded on the decision in Sustainable Shetland v The Scottish Ministers in which Lady Clark found that consent to build a wind farm could not be granted to developers who did not already hold a licence to generate electricity.
Decision
Lord Doherty rejected these arguments. The decision not to hold a public inquiry had been lawful (the Minister has a wide discretion as to whether or not to hold a public inquiry) and Trump had not set out any objective justification as why it indicated bias. As regards s36 of the 1989 Act, Lord Doherty disagreed with the interpretation taken by Lady Clark in Sustainable Shetland and found that the Act conferred power on the Scottish Government to grant s36 consent even though Aberdeen Offshore did not have a licence to generate electricity. Trump’s petition was dismissed.
The full judgement is available from Scottish Courts here.
(See also appeals to the Inner House and Supreme Court.)
All of our property and conveyancing case summaries are contained in the LKS Property and Conveyancing Casebook here.
