Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if she will make an estimate of the average length of time that judicial reviews took to complete for road infrastructure projects between 2015 and 2025.

Between 2015 and 2025, 11 judicial reviews were submitted in relation to Development Consent Orders for road infrastructure projects. The Department successfully defended 9 of these, highlighting the fair, legally robust decisions the Department makes to deliver major infrastructure.

Judicial reviews must be lodged within six weeks of a decision being issued. The length of the process is entirely in the hands of courts. The average length of time between a decision and legal proceedings concluding for these 11 cases was 437 days.

The Planning & Infrastructure Bill will streamline legal challenges to major infrastructure projects, reducing delays from unmerited claims and supporting faster delivery of nationally significant projects.