A Road to reduced emissions? N.I. High Court judgment sees climate change legislation map out a new course in infrastructure

Mr Justice McAlinden, a High Court judge in Belfast, handed down a decision for Hassard, Re [2025] NIKB 42, which blocked planned works to expand a major single carriageway. One of the main reasons given was that the project did not comply with Northern Irish climate change laws. This case sets a notable precedent in Northern Ireland, underscoring the importance of adhering to climate change legislation in project planning and execution.

The Project

The A5 is a cross-border single carriageway that stretches from Derry/Londonderry to Aughnacloy and is one of the main north-south routes in Northern Ireland. It has long been criticised as an unsafe passage resulting in deaths and injuries, arguably due to the road not being able to cope with the amount of traffic that uses it. There have been attempts for more than a decade to upgrade the road into a dual carriageway for safer and more efficient travelling.

As the project was also intended to be undertaken in conjunction with the Republic of Ireland, its government committed €600m in funding for the road upgrade in February 2024. The project itself was finally given the go ahead by Stormont ministers in October 2024. Then the Department for Infrastructure (DfI) picked up their shovels (or, more realistically, their laptops) and got to work.

The Climate Change (Northern Ireland) Act 2022

The Climate Change (Northern Ireland) Act 2022 (the Act) was passed by the Assembly to commit Northern Ireland to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050. It does so by providing mechanisms to: (1) set regular targets for GHG reduction; (2) create a system of carbon budgeting; and (3) provide reports and statements regarding those targets and budgets.

To support these mechanisms, the Act empowers the Department for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) to impose climate change reporting duties on public bodies. It also requires DAERA to devise and publish “Climate Action Plans” (CAPs) for each budgetary period, which are to set out proposals and policies for meeting carbon budgets. Additionally, the Act obliges all government departments to ensure that specific net emission targets are met and to publish plans illustrating these targets and how they are to be met, and to cooperate with each other in achieving these targets.

The challenge and the ruling

Against this backdrop, an interest group launched a legal challenge against the DfI as “persons aggrieved” under the Roads (Northern Ireland) Order 1993 with an eye to halting the project.

The group opposing the A5 expansion made an application to challenge a decision and several related orders made by the DfI to progress part of the project’s first phase. Included in the group’s grounds of challenge in the case were that the DfI failed to demonstrate compliance with the Act because it did not have a CAP in place when it decided to progress a significant part of the project scheme. They also argued that the DfI ignored significant sections of several reports issued by the Planning Appeals Commission [1], which set out environmental concerns and recommendations in relation to complaints about the plans, and that new environmental information on revised GHG emissions estimates relating to the project was not set out for public scrutiny when it should have been, pursuant to the EIA Directive [2].

Mr Justice McAlinden agreed and quashed the DfI’s decision and the related orders to move ahead with the project. Although the judge expressed acute awareness that those impacted by the road’s hazardousness would feel anguished by the decision, he detailed that the project must be progressed in accordance with the law, even where motivation to progress is for a societal benefit. However, the judgment is not a nail in the coffin for the project. Instead, it serves as a set  of directions that the DfI must follow to ensure the project’s success, once it regroups and addresses the unresolved issues.

What are the implications?

This ruling has the potential to go beyond the A5 project. Not only does it mean that other Northern Irish road projects may be subject to a new round of scrutiny, but it also proves that government entities in general will need to look closer at any infrastructure plans they may have to make sure they adequately account for the Act’s provisions. This might include NHS trusts eyeing up new hospital wings or councils looking to update local primary schools.

Public interest groups have long acted as the expected challengers of project plans (as councils and developers alike may lament across the country). However, the somewhat recent (and rising) practice of using legal mechanisms to affect change by those who are alert and vigilant to the climate crisis means this is another cautionary tale for public project stakeholders.

While some will naturally applaud the Hassard, Re decision as a win that has resulted in a valuable addition to the arsenal for the fight against carbon emissions, others will undoubtedly feel frustrated by the further bureaucracy it introduces. This includes the inevitable delays and increased costs for further environmental assessments and compliance measures that will need to be implemented. More experts will need to be consulted, environmental factors tested, and reports written by those experts to demonstrate the results of those tests - all of which cost time and money. Regardless of one’s outlook, one certainty of this ruling is that developers and contractors looking to tender on public projects will need to cast a keen eye over their procurement plans to make sure they make necessary provisions for compliance with regulatory and climate focused requirements as if not, campaign groups may be right behind them waiting to pounce.