R v Secretary of State for Transport ex p. Richmond upon Thames LBC & Ors (No.1)

(Computer Aided Transcript of the Stenograph Notes of John Larking, Chancery House, 53/64 Chancery Lane, London WC2 Telephone No. 071 404 7464 Official Shorthand Writers to the Court)

MR. RICHARD GORDON (Instructed by Richard Buxton, Cambridge) appeared on behalf of the Applicants. MR. I. BURNETT and MR MARK SHAW (Instructed by the Treasury Solicitors) appeared on behalf of the Respondent. ____________________

I must canvass the facts more closely, but will first set out the statutory provision under which the Secretary of State proposes to act and which, indeed, authorises the 1988 measures now in force. This is of obvious importance because Mr. Gordon has submitted that the Secretary of State's scheme would be illegal because the statute on its true construction confers no power to give effect to it. The relevant provision is section 78(3) of the Civil Aviation Act 1982:

(a) prohibit aircraft of descriptions specified in the notice from taking off or landing at the aerodrome (otherwise than in an emergency of a description so specified) during periods so specified;

(b) specify the maximum number of occasions on which aircraft of descriptions so specified may be permitted to take off or land at the aerodrome (otherwise than as aforesaid) during periods so specified;