Top planning barrister releases new book on judicial review

Tetto at Bullitt Hotel played host for ‘Planning Judicial Review in Northern Ireland’ – written by William Orbinson KC, legal associate of the Royal Town Planning Institute and Affiliate of the Irish Planning Institute, and his co-author, Judge Fionnuala Anne Connolly, a former Belfast judicial review Barrister recently appointed as a Judge of the Royal Court in Guernsey.

Among those welcoming the publication of the book was Lady Chief Justice, Rt Hon Dame Siobhan Keegan.

“The late Lord Kerr of Tonaghmore, formerly of the Supreme Court and our Lord Chief Justice, used to gently tease me about generating ‘slim volumes’ on planning, though their slimness never dissuaded him from encouraging my publishing efforts or lending his name to them in forewords,” William Orbinson KC said.

“My 2009 publication ‘Planning and Judicial Review’ was an attempt to beef things up a bit in response, but in retrospect looks a little svelte compared to this book.

“That is not just a reflection of his encouragement, but of how the field of planning judicial review has burgeoned in Northern Ireland over the intervening years, both in complexity and in numbers”.

The book is intended to provide legal and planning practitioners, and the wider audience of all those interested in how our environment is created and protected, with an accessible but in-depth explanation of how our courts go about judicial review in the field of planning and related environmental decisions