R (on the application of Wild Justice) v Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority [2025] EWHC 2249 (Admin)

Wild Justice v Pembrokeshire Coast is an important Welsh planning case on background papers, procedural fairness, protected sites and Habitats Regulations assessment. The High Court quashed permission for an outdoor adventure centre after finding two significant errors: a Natural Resources Wales draft survey report had not been published even though it was materially relied upon, and the National Park Authority had failed properly to address the Aberarth-Carreg Wylan SSSI and the relevant Planning Policy Wales presumption.

Neutral citation

[2025] EWHC 2249 (Admin)

Court

High Court of Justice, King's Bench Division, Planning Court

Judgment date

5th September 2025

Judge

Mr Justice Eyre

Case number

AC-2024-CDF-00018

This is a Welsh planning case

The development was in Pembrokeshire Coast National Park and the planning decision was made under the Welsh planning system. The judgment applies Planning Policy Wales, the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (Wales) Order 2012 and the Environment (Wales) Act 2016 as well as UK-wide public-law principles and the Habitats Regulations.

Those jurisdictional differences matter. The case is highly useful on transparency, fairness and environmental decision-making, but the precise statutory publication duties should not simply be transplanted into an English application without checking the English legislation.

What happened at Ceibwr Bay

Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority granted permission for the Old Bus Depot at Moylegrove to change use to an outdoor adventure centre with storage and related facilities.

The operator already ran coasteering and kayaking activities nearby. The new premises would provide better changing, storage and parking facilities and had the potential to increase activity at Ceibwr Bay.

Ceibwr Bay lies within or close to several protected sites, including the Cardigan Bay SAC, the West Wales Marine SAC and the Aberarth-Carreg Wylan SSSI. Wild Justice challenged the permission on five grounds.

The NRW draft survey was a background paper

A draft Natural Resources Wales report on breeding birds at Ceibwr Bay had been considered by the National Park Authority’s ecologist. It was then referred to in the Habitats assessment, the officer report and at committee as evidence supporting the conclusion that coasteering did not present a significant risk to the breeding birds studied.

The draft report itself was not published.

Mr Justice Eyre held that the only rational conclusion was that it had been materially relied upon and was therefore a background paper for the purposes of section 100D of the Local Government Act 1972.

Public access to background evidence has a real purpose

The court emphasised that publication duties are not administrative box-ticking. Their purpose is to allow members of the public to understand the evidence being relied upon and make sensible, informed representations before the decision is taken.

Wild Justice was able to show the kind of critique it would have made if the draft report had been available, including concerns about the timing and duration of the bird survey and the weight being placed on its findings.

That was enough to establish material prejudice. A short published position statement and a brief summary in the authority’s own documents were not an adequate substitute for access to the report itself.

Not every unpublished document was a background paper

The judgment is careful not to turn every document in a planning file into a mandatory background paper.

The National Trust’s private coasteering Concordat was not materially relied upon in the way alleged. The authority’s own planning condition and Transport and Access Management Plan were the measures on which it relied to control the activity.

A later lobbying letter was published on the day it arrived and was not a background paper. A separate Q&A document should have been published under the Welsh Development Management Procedure Order, but the court found no material prejudice from that particular omission.

The SSSI was a mandatory relevant consideration

The second successful ground concerned the Aberarth-Carreg Wylan SSSI.

Planning Policy Wales contained a presumption against development outside an SSSI where it was likely to damage the SSSI and required proposals to be carefully assessed so that effects on the protected features were clearly understood.

Choughs were one of the SSSI’s notified interests and there was potential for them to nest in the area affected by the adventure activities. Yet the committee was not properly alerted to the significance of the SSSI, the presumption in Planning Policy Wales or the need for that focused assessment.

The court held that the SSSI issue was a mandatory relevant consideration which had not been lawfully addressed.

The Habitats Regulations challenge itself did not succeed

Wild Justice also attacked the authority’s Habitats Regulations assessment of the effects on the Cardigan Bay SAC, particularly the grey seal population.

The court accepted that regulation 63 imposes a demanding test. Permission can only be granted after the competent authority has ascertained that the project will not adversely affect the integrity of the protected site.

However, read fairly as a whole, the authority’s assessment had applied the correct test. It was rationally open to the ecologist to conclude that the managed risk of disturbance to individual seals did not translate into a risk to the integrity of the SAC and its qualifying population.

The annual management-plan condition was capable of working

A major part of the mitigation was condition 20, requiring a Transport and Access Management Plan to be approved before the adventure centre began operating and then resubmitted annually using the latest ecological information.

The court rejected the argument that the condition was legally inadequate simply because detailed controls would be settled later.

The important point was that the National Park Authority retained control over the future plan and could refuse to approve it unless it provided adequate protection. The condition was rationally capable of achieving the environmental objective.

The wildlife-tourism comments did not introduce an unlawful balance

The authority’s ecologist had also referred to the wider benefits of people engaging with wildlife through activities such as coasteering.

Wild Justice argued that this showed the authority had unlawfully balanced harm to the SAC against tourism or educational benefits.

The court disagreed. Read in context, the ecologist had concluded there would be no adverse effect on the integrity of the SAC. The wildlife-tourism comments were not being used to excuse or outweigh an acknowledged integrity harm.

The highly likely test did not save the permission

The National Park Authority relied on section 31(2A) of the Senior Courts Act 1981 and argued that the outcome would highly likely have been the same despite any error.

The court rejected that submission. Both successful grounds were significant. Publication of the NRW report could have materially altered the debate over the evidence, while proper consideration of the SSSI could have affected the assessment or the conditions imposed.

The court could not say it was highly likely that the outcome would not have been substantially different. The planning permission was therefore quashed.

Read the full Wild Justice judgment

The approved Planning Court judgment is held in the Planning Geek case law library. Gold Members can open the protected PDF below.

Related Planning Geek guidance

The general decision-making principles also connect with our guide to planning officer reports. For England, our separate planning register page explains the English publication requirements. Do not use that English page as a substitute for the Welsh legislation considered in Wild Justice.

Wild Justice Case Law Page Updated: 9th September 2026