People Over Wind and Peter Sweetman v Coillte Teoranta (Case C-323/17) EU:C:2018:244
People Over Wind screening is the key Court of Justice judgment on whether mitigation can be used to avoid an appropriate assessment under the Habitats Directive.
The answer is no. Measures intended to avoid or reduce harmful effects on a protected site cannot be taken into account at the screening stage when deciding whether a plan or project is likely to have a significant effect.
Important legal note: Planning Geek is a planning consultancy, not a law firm. This page provides general planning information and is not legal advice. Case law must be read in its factual and legal context and may be affected by later judgments, legislation or policy. Where the original judgment is available, it remains the authoritative source. If the outcome matters to a live case or dispute, take advice from an appropriately qualified planning solicitor or barrister.
Copyright and licensing: Crown copyright and other rights in judgments and source material remain with the relevant rights holders. Where a judgment is reproduced from Find Case Law, it is used under the Open Justice Licence and the source should be acknowledged. Material obtained from other sources is reproduced only where the applicable terms permit it. Planning Geek does not claim copyright in the text of court judgments.
- Neutral citation
- Case C-323/17, EU:C:2018:244
- Court
- Court of Justice of the European Union, Seventh Chamber
- Judgment date
- 12th April 2018
- Judge
- A. Rosas, C. Toader and E. Jarašiūnas
- Case number
- C-323/17
Need help with a planning application?
Planning Geek isn’t just a reference site - preparing and submitting planning applications is what we do. If you’d like a hand with an application, an appeal or any other planning matter, we’d be glad to help.
What People Over Wind screening decided
The dispute concerned works to connect a wind farm in Ireland to the electricity grid. Part of the cable route was close to the River Barrow and River Nore Special Area of Conservation, where freshwater pearl mussel was a protected species.
The project description included measures intended to prevent polluted surface water and suspended solids reaching the protected river system.
The Irish High Court asked whether those measures could be considered during screening when deciding whether an appropriate assessment was necessary.
Mitigation cannot be used to screen a project out
The Court of Justice held that measures intended to avoid or reduce harmful effects must be left out of the screening assessment.
The screening question is whether the project, viewed without relying on those protective measures, is likely to have a significant effect on the protected site. If the answer cannot be excluded on objective information, an appropriate assessment is required.
Needing mitigation may itself indicate that significant effects cannot be excluded
The court reasoned that if project-specific protective measures are considered necessary to prevent or reduce harmful effects, that can itself suggest that significant effects are possible.
Allowing those measures to be used at screening could therefore enable a project to avoid the full appropriate-assessment stage precisely because it had been designed with measures intended to control an identified risk.
Mitigation belongs in the appropriate assessment
The detailed examination of whether mitigation will actually work belongs at the appropriate-assessment stage. That is where the authority can make complete, precise and definitive findings using the best scientific knowledge and decide whether adverse effects on site integrity can be ruled out.
This protects the purpose of Article 6(3) rather than allowing the more rigorous assessment stage to be bypassed.
People Over Wind changed an important earlier approach
Before this judgment, some decisions had allowed mitigation to be considered at screening. Planning Geek’s Lee Valley case page explains one English example of that earlier approach.
People Over Wind means that aspect of the earlier case law should not be used as the current screening rule.
Read People Over Wind with Sweetman and Holohan
The case fits into a wider Article 6(3) sequence. Sweetman explains the site-integrity and no-reasonable-scientific-doubt test. Holohan explains how broad and detailed the appropriate assessment itself must be.
For current practical guidance, see our Habitats Regulations Assessment guide.
Read the full People Over Wind judgment
The full Court of Justice judgment is held in the Planning Geek case law library. Gold Members can open the protected PDF below.
People Over Wind Screening Case Law Page Updated: 10th September 2026