The House of Lords has overturned a landmark High Court ruling that the DETR's right to call in planning applications breaches the Human Rights Act.
The judgment, issued on Wednesday, ruled in favour of the government, which had appealed against the decision. The High Court ruled in four cases that planning law was incompatible with the new Human Rights Act.
In the case of Alconbury Developments, the High Court ruled that the secretary of state for the environment had no right to rule on developments that the government was set to profit from.
The developer sought an outcome in the case after residents invoked the law to challenge a warehouse development on Ministry of Defence land in Alconbury, Cambridgeshire.
