London Luton Airport expansion finally cleared for take-off?

On 21 May 2026, the Court of Appeal published its judgment in the appeal brought by Luton and District Association for the Control of Aircraft Noise (LADACAN) against the High Court judgment of Justice Lang. The Court of Appeal refused permission for an extension of time following the late filing of LADACAN’s Appellant’s Notice and, by extension, refused permission to appeal altogether, a decision that will be a welcome fillip to the Government’s policy ambitions for accelerating the delivery of Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs). Tom Henderson, who leads TLT’s legal team advising Luton Rising, and Associate Will Massa, provide a summary of the ruling.

Background

In December 2025, Lang J found against LADACAN in a judicial review of the Secretary of State for Transport’s (SoSfT) decision in April 2025 to grant development consent for redevelopment of London Luton Airport to increase capacity from 19 million to 32 million passengers per year. Lang J dismissed five out of six grounds of challenge, including two grounds related to the assessment of greenhouse gas emissions and non-Co₂ emissions from inbound flights in light of the Supreme Court ruling in R (Finch) v Surrey County Council [2024]. The sixth ground was stayed pending the outcome of a separate challenge of the lawfulness of the Government’s Jet Zero Strategy. That challenge has since been dismissed by the Court of Appeal, and ground six duly fell away. (Further commentary on the implications of Lang J’s High Court judgment can be found in our previous TLT insight here).

Policy and reform

The Court of Appeal’s judgment sets out the policy impetus for creating an agile consenting framework for NSIPs, originating with the development consent order (DCO) regime under the Planning Act 2008 to deal with “interminable planning inquiries”, and culminating with the enactment of the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 to further streamline processes to address ongoing project delays. Part of that streamlining has involved reform of the process for challenge to DCOs by way of judicial review. In dealing with the extension of time, the court was concerned with changes to the Civil Procedure Rules introduced following the recommendations of Lord Banner KC’s independent 2024 report into NSIP judicial review. Specifically, Lord Banner had invited the Civil Procedure Rule Committee (CPRC) to introduce a new Practice Direction setting out target timescales for appeals to the Court of Appeal from the Planning Court. The CPRC published updates in July 2025 which came into force in October 2025, reducing the appeal deadline for NSIPs from 21 days to 7 days. The rule change was missed by LADACAN’s legal representatives who were accordingly late in filing the Appellant’s notice of appeal in December of that year.

The court found that inadvertence was no answer for a failure to comply with a time limit, and that the subsequent delay and uncertainty caused by this failure had had an impact on the “orderly progress” of the airport’s expansion. Importantly, this was not just about the ability of the promoter to get “spades in the ground”, but concerned a range of DCO implementation steps required to be taken before London Luton Airport could begin to increase capacity, including environmental monitoring, the purchase of equipment and the establishment of an Environmental Scrutiny Group charged with overseeing the development’s pioneering “Green Controlled Growth” sustainability framework. The imposition of target dates on the court was itself a “clear manifestation of underlying policy”, a policy that would have been undermined by the grant of an extension of time in this case. In finding against the Appellant, Lord Justice Lewison was at pains to make it clear that “this court must send out a clear message that delays in an appeal involving NSIPs are unacceptable”.

As to the merits of the appeal itself, the court heard short submissions from LADACAN and the SoSfT on the perceived strength of LADACAN’s grounds as part of the approach to considering whether to extend time (laid down in R (Hysaj) v SSHD [2014] EWCA Civ 1633, [2015] 1 WLR 2472). Following Hysaj, only in cases where the court can see without much investigation that appeal grounds are either very strong or very weak will grounds weigh in the balance. In this case, the court found that the merits were “far from sufficiently clear”, for the purposes of concluding that no extension of time would be permitted. Though the judgment avoids an investigation of the merits, Lewison LJ observed that: “Lang J’s judgment is cogently and comprehensively reasoned; there is no obvious flaw in her judgment. The grounds of appeal on which the Appellant wishes to rely have been comprehensively answered in writing both by the Secretary of State and the interested party [London Luton Airport Limited]”.

This judgment bolsters the policy position for streamlined infrastructure consenting and will be welcome news to both the Government and promoters of NSIPs. It is a reminder to prospective litigants bringing judicial review claims for DCO decisions that the regime has changed. Furthermore, the judgment makes clear that there is no “special rule” on extensions of time for cases concerning public law. Though issues of importance to the public at large can be taken into consideration, the “public interest factor” will not be an independently compelling reason for extending time.

If you're involved in a major infrastructure project and are considering the implications of recent NSIP reforms, our market-leading Infrastructure Planning, Environment, Parliamentary and Compulsory Purchase team is here to help you navigate these complex issues. Please get in touch to discuss how this judgment might affect your project.

This publication is intended for general guidance and represents our understanding of the relevant law and practice as at May 2026. Specific advice should be sought for specific cases. For more information see our terms & conditions.