Barker European EIA: consent in more than one stage
R (on the application of Diane Barker) v London Borough of Bromley, Case C-290/03, is the European judgment behind the domestic Barker EIA litigation.
The Court of Justice explained how the EIA Directive applies when an authority gives a principal decision first and approves further details later. The national description of a decision does not, by itself, determine whether it is part of the development consent process.
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- Neutral citation
- Case C-290/03
- Court
- Court of Justice of the European Communities (First Chamber)
- Judgment date
- 4th May 2006
- Judge
- P. Jann, K. Schiemann, N. Colneric, E. Juhász and E. Levits
- Case number
- C-290/03
The questions referred from the United Kingdom
Diane Barker challenged decisions concerning a leisure development at Crystal Palace. The procedure involved outline permission and later approval of reserved matters.
The House of Lords asked the Court of Justice how that arrangement fitted the Directive’s requirements. In particular, could environmental assessment be required at the later stage if it had not taken place when outline permission was granted?
A domestic label does not settle the EIA question
The Court treated development consent as a concept governed by the Directive, rather than leaving each national system free to determine its meaning through terminology alone.
Where a procedure has a principal decision and a later implementing decision, both stages may need to be considered as part of the authorisation process.
The environmental effects should be identified and assessed at the earliest stage at which that can properly be done. Where effects can only be identified at the later stage, assessment must be possible at that stage.
This was not an order to repeat every assessment
The judgment does not require an entirely new EIA every time an authority approves a detail. The issue is whether the relevant effects have been identified and assessed within a legally adequate consent process.
It remained for the national court to consider the domestic framework and the facts. The European court’s preliminary ruling was an interpretation of the Directive, not a direct order quashing a particular British permission.
Read the connected domestic decision as well
The House of Lords subsequently applied the ruling in Barker [2006] UKHL 52. That entry explains the declarations made and why the expired outline permission was not quashed.
Keeping the two judgments separate helps avoid mixing the European interpretation with the domestic remedy. Both belong to the same litigation, and should be read together.
For later domestic treatment of multi-stage authorisation, see C G Fry. A current project still requires the applicable legislation to be identified; EIA and Habitats assessment are not interchangeable.
Read the European Barker judgment
Gold Members can read the complete Court of Justice judgment below.
Barker European EIA Case Law Page Updated: 12th September 2026