The High Court has refused permission for Rural Residents Wind Aware and Environmental Group, John Nolan and Catriona Nolan to appeal the dismissal of their judicial review challenge concerning a wind energy project promoted by White Hill Wind Limited.
The applicants had challenged a November 2023 planning decision involving the project. Their case was dealt with over two substantive judgments, delivered in November 2025 and March 2026, which dismissed the grounds relevant to the present proceedings.
They then sought a certificate allowing an appeal under the special statutory regime governing planning judicial reviews. Such an appeal requires a point of law of exceptional public importance and must also be desirable in the public interest.
The applicants proposed seven questions. These included issues concerning wind turbine noise, impacts on people with particular sensitivities, planning conditions, development on third-party land and the relationship between planning permission and later nuisance claims.
Mr Justice Humphreys rejected the proposed questions. He found that several did not arise from the pleaded case or from the judgment, while others were fact-specific applications of established law rather than new legal questions.
The judge also rejected the claimed conflict between planning decisions permitting wind farms and later nuisance cases involving operating wind farms. He said the two situations address different matters: predicted impacts at the planning stage and actual impacts once a development is operating. The grant of planning permission does not prevent a later nuisance action.
Humphreys J further held that no sufficiently developed EU law issue had been identified which required an appeal or reference to the Court of Justice.
He said the public interest favoured finality, particularly given the statutory emphasis on expedition in planning litigation and the renewable-energy nature of the project.
The application for leave to appeal was dismissed. The underlying judicial review proceedings were also ordered to be formally dismissed, with no order as to costs unless the Supreme Court later grants a leapfrog appeal.