PRESS RELEASE
A legal challenge brought by Wild Justice and Badger Trust concerning supplementary Badger cull licences has forced last minute policy concessions from Natural England, and Defra, negating the court’s discretion to grant a declaration.
Key findings:
A long-awaited judicial review has shone a light on internal documents which reveal how Natural England approved additional culling of Badgers against its own scientific advice. The internal papers, prepared for NE’s Executive Committee, briefed senior leadership on applications for supplementary Badger culls and set out supposedly relevant considerations for licence granting. Amongst these were five factors that the document implied could be taken into account when granting licences. These factors were:
Following the distribution of this document, NE granted 26 supplementary Badger cull licences on 3rd May 2024, despite a declaration from their Director of Science that there was “no justification” for this cull at this time. As a result, Wild Justice and Badger Trust brought a challenge on the basis that the decision had been improperly influenced by irrelevant considerations, including the consequences outlined in the briefing document.
Shortly before and during the proceedings, NE argued that their decision-maker had not accessed, or relied upon, the briefing document containing those considerations. As a result, no finding of unlawfulness could be made. Following NE’s concession, Lawyers for Wild Justice and Badger Trust invited the Court to make a formal legal ruling confirming that the five considerations would have constituted irrelevant factors in the decision-making process. The Court declined to do so, on the basis that it is not the proper function of a court, following concessions on the part of NE and Defra, to rule on hypothetical questions.
However, crucially, both Natural England and the Secretary of State conceded at the hearing that those considerations would have been unlawful to rely upon, had they in fact been taken into account. This means that both NE and Defra have formally recognised that farming interests, political pressure, and budget considerations should not considered as factors when authorising any future Badger culls.
This outcome follows a long drawn-out legal process, during which another landmark precedent for access to environmental justice has been set. In November 2025 Natural England attempted to remove standard costs protections for Wild Justice and Badger Trust’s case under the Aarhus Convention, which would rendered such a legal challenge unaffordable for the non-profit organisations. In a ground-breaking judgement, the Court emphatically rejected NE’s efforts, affirming that legal challenges of this kind “promote a public interest in an environmental protection context.”
As a result of that ruling, Natural England signalled that it will not again seek to block access to environmental justice by challenging the default costs protections available to claimants under the Aarhus Convention.
In April 2025, Wild Justice and Badger Trust offered to discontinue the claim on the basis that each side bear its own costs – an offer Natural England refused, insisting instead that the claimants pay the entirety of NE’s costs to date. The judge found that refusal unjustified, and ordered that neither party pay the other’s costs.
The case was brought because Wild Justice and Badger Trust believe badger culling is inhumane, lacks scientific justification, and appears to be pursued primarily to satisfy the farming lobby rather than on legitimate grounds for controlling disease. In bringing the challenge, they uncovered evidence that vindicated those concerns in the form of internal documents which would not otherwise have entered the public domain.
Carol Day, Senior Environmental Solicitor at Leigh Day said:
“This judgment reflects important concessions made by Natural England and the Secretary of State that factors such as appeasing farmers and DEFRA and protecting NE’s budget should not be taken into account when considering the culling of badgers. Our clients also welcome the ground-breaking judgment given by Mr Justice Fordham in response to NE’s unsuccessful attempt to increase the Aarhus costs cap. The judge underlined the importance of environmental cases in exposing and promoting public confidence in public authority decision-making. We hope this sends a strong signal to public bodies that the courts will push back on unjustified attempts to increase their costs liability.”
Bob Elliot, CEO of Wild Justice said:
“For years, many thousands of badgers have been killed under a policy that Wild Justice believed deserved proper legal and scientific scrutiny. This case has shown the value of independent challenge: internal concerns within Natural England were exposed, important concessions were made late in the day in court, and clear principles were reinforced about how environmental decisions should be taken.
By bringing this challenge, important information was revealed that would otherwise never have been seen by the public. We discovered that concerns existed within Natural England’s own teams and that, until very late in the decision-making process, factors unrelated to the scientific merits of killing badgers, were still being considered. Decisions of this scale must be lawful, transparent and grounded in evidence. Wild Justice will continue to watch very carefully what Defra and Natural England intend to do in the future regarding any supplementary killing permits that could be authorised in the future.”
Rosie Wood, Chair of Badger Trust said:
“A great outcome for badgers and transparency. But in a well organised world, it shouldn’t have taken two tiny organisations so much work to get NE and Defra to this inevitable point. The public purse could have been saved many tens of thousands of pounds had Natural England and Defra not racked up their costs1. They could easily have conceded the central points at issue when raised in correspondencetwo years agoinstead of – in one instance – in the afternoon of our hearing. On occasion, I even felt sorry for NEs barrister, trying to defend the indefensible chaos within NE, and eventually finding it necessary to say that “lessons have been learned”.
Independent statutory bodies should be able to act independently, and they should think very carefully about how they make future decisions: the natural environment, their staff, stakeholders, and the taxpayer all deserve much better.”
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1 Extract from a passage on costs from the judgment:
“It has turned out that the costs after 25 April 2025 – more than 6 months earlier – could all have been avoided. Leigh Day wrote a letter “without prejudice save as to costs” on that date, offering to agree not to pursue the claim, if NE agreed that there should be no order as to costs. The Claimants, reasonably in my judgment, wanted to ensure that the materials in the proceedings would be accessible in the public domain. The reason given by NE for refusing to agree was an insistence that the Claimants should be liable for the entirety of NE’s reasonable costs incurred to date. That choice of position by NE has not been vindicated. It has not been shown that, as things then stood, the claim would have failed. It is also a striking position for NE to have adopted, for what at that stage were costs of £5.8k. These circumstances means that the costs after 25 April 2025 could all have been avoided. And NE had been warned that the correspondence would be relied on in relation to any later costs dispute. The case could have been stopped, on a reasonable and fair basis, even when NE was maintaining a position on the permissible legal relevance of the Five Considerations which it later withdrew, and even before the evidence which demonstrated that they had not been taken into account. Stepping back, this and the other considerations balance out, and the just order is no order as to costs.”
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For any questions or interviews please contact Wild Justice at admin@wildjustice.org.uk and ceo@wildjustice.org.uk