THE EUROPEAN Commission is to take the UK Government to court over its failure to require an Environmental Impact Assessment for a planned multiplex cinema in Crystal Palace Park - two years after developers agreed to scrap the project.
The decision follows a complaint from the local Crystal Palace Campaign lodged the Commission and supported by London's Green MEP Jean Lambert.
Mrs Lambert welcomed the decision: "I congratulate the Crystal Palace Campaign on their success in getting the European Commission to recognise that UK planning law did not adequately safeguard the environment of Crystal Palace," she said.
"The effects of this decision could be far-reaching. If the court decides against the Government it will be forced to make wholesale changes to planning law, affecting developments across the country.
"Essentially planning decisions will have to ask whether there is a need for developments on this scale in the first place - and this decision makes clear that local people will have to be involved in the decision-making process."
ENDS
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