ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
KING'S BENCH DIVISION
PLANNING COURT
Mrs Justice Lang
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Before :
LORD JUSTICE BEAN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE COURT OF APPEAL, CIVIL DIVISION
LORD JUSTICE LEWISON
and
LORD JUSTICE HOLGATE
Between :
THE KING (on the application of Luton and District Association for the Control of Aircraft Noise) | Appellant |
- and - | |
SECRETARY OF STATE FOR TRANSPORT - and – LONDON LUTON AIRPORT LIMITED | Respondent Interested Party |
Estelle Dehon KC, Ruchi Parekh and Hannah Taylor (instructed by Leigh Day)
for the Appellant
James Strachan KC and Victoria Hutton (instructed by the Government Legal Department) for the Respondent
Michael Humphries KC and Rebecca Clutten (instructed by Broadfield Law UK LLP)
for the Interested Party
Hearing date : 19 May 2026
Supplemental Judgment
Lord Justice Bean (Vice President, Court of Appeal, Civil Division), Lord Justice Lewison and Lord Justice Holgate:
The Claimant applied to this court for permission to appeal to the Supreme Court (“UKSC”) from our judgment and order handed down on 21 May: [2026] EWCA Civ 648 . We refused that application. Our reasons are as follows.
We respectfully agree with the view of the UKSC, set out in Practice Direction 1 at paragraph 1.31, that on a proper interpretation of Lane v Esdaile [1891] AC 210 the UKSC has no jurisdiction to hear appeals from preliminary decisions of the Court of Appeal in respect of a case in which permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal is not granted. We note that the wording used is that permission is “not granted”, rather than that permission is “refused”; so that even if it were correct that this court had no jurisdiction to refuse permission to appeal having refused an extension of time, the result would still be the same.
In any event, if the UKSC does have jurisdiction, we are not persuaded that the grounds of appeal against the refusal to extend time raise an arguable point of law of general public importance which ought to be considered by the UKSC.