Campaigners will not mount "excessive" legal challenges to planning decisions on major infrastructure projects such as airports, railways and nuclear power stations as part of the government's push for economic growth.

High Court judges will have the power to rule that judicial reviews of nationally significant projects they consider to be "completely unfounded" - which can currently be brought to court three times - will not be appealable.

Keir Starmer said the change would "put the brakes on Britain" by reforming the planning system and sending a message to business to build more of the nation's infrastructure as ministers desperately pursue opportunities to improve the economy.

“For too long, obstructionists have gained the upper hand in legal challenges – using our court processes to hinder economic growth,” he said.

“We are ending this culture of challenge by confronting NIMBYs and the broken systems that hold back our nation’s progress.”

It is one of a series of measures the government is considering as part of a comprehensive pursuit of growth that has alarmed environmental groups.

With gross domestic product (GDP) figures little changed since the election, Rachel Reeves is considering proposals from airport expansion to widespread deregulation to improve Britain's economic prospects.

Government sources said the Prime Minister was "extremely unimpressed" by the pro-growth ideas raised at a meeting with some of the country's biggest regulators last week and has since directed them to revamp their plans.

Sources say she was so unhappy with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) that she intervened to force its chairman, Marcus Bokkerink, to step down.

Officials said only the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) submission reflected the "urgency and focus" she hopes to show in her growth speech next week.

"I think the balance in terms of risk regulation has gone too far. Obviously, you know you have to be able to protect consumers, but people should also be able to take risks," she told reporters at a global finance gathering in Davos.

A renewed emphasis on growth could lead to divisions within Labour, including resistance at cabinet level to Reeves' apparent support for a third runway at Heathrow.

But Reeves said: "That was the problem with the previous administration, there was always people saying 'Oh, yes, of course we want to grow the economy, but we don't like that investment, we don't like that wind farm, we don't like those Towers, we don’t like that airport and we don’t want housing like that in our neighborhood.”

“But the answer can’t always be no, it’s been a longstanding problem in the UK that when the choice is between something that boosts economic growth and something else, something else always wins.

"When we say growth is the top mission of this administration, we mean it. That means it trumps other things."

However, some environmentalists are uneasy about the government's move to reduce legal challenges to infrastructure projects, which they have pledged to deliver in this parliament.

More than half (58 per cent) of ministerial decisions on major infrastructure projects since 2012 have been taken to court, official figures show, which the government says has caused years of delays and added hundreds of millions of dollars to project costs.

In February 2020, when the Court of Appeal ruled after a judicial review that plans for a third runway at Heathrow were unlawful, Starmer tweeted "congratulations to climate activists".

"There is no challenge more important than the climate emergency. That is why I voted against Heathrow expansion," he said at the time.

Charles Banner, who last year led an independent review of legal challenges to the National Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP), said the plan would "weed out the most common challenges by reducing the number of challenges the courts consider spurious from three to one." Serious offenders".

Lord Banner said: "There is a clear case for streamlining judicial review of consent decisions for major national infrastructure projects, given that delays in these projects would cause real harm to the public interest."

“Throughout my review, I saw broad consensus from plaintiffs to plan sponsors that a faster justice system would be in their interest as long as cases still get a fair trial.”

He added: "In particular, reducing the number of license attempts for truly hopeless cases to one should weed out the worst offenders without risking inadvertent delays because judges choose to err on the side of caution."

The current first attempt - known as the file permission phase - will be cancelled. Key legislation will be changed so that it will be impossible to ask the Court of Appeal to reconsider when a judge at an oral hearing in the High Court considers a case to be "completely without merit". In other cases, a request for a second appeal will be allowed.

Government officials said the approach would ensure access to justice and protect people from genuine protocol issues while resisting a "culture of challenge" in which small pressure groups use the courts to block decisions made in the national interest.

They cited offshore wind farms in East Anglia, the new Sizewell C nuclear power station and the A47 national highway project as examples which were delayed for years after local campaigners and environmental campaigners launched judicial reviews, but were all subsequently scrapped. turn down.

Green groups have also raised concerns about plans to roll back environmental protections to free up the planning system through a new nature recovery fund, which the government says will not allow protected species such as salamanders and bats to be deemed more important than homes or infrastructure.

Niall Toru, senior lawyer at Friends of the Earth, said: “No one is above the law, not even governments.

“Friends of the Earth will only bring cases that we believe are strong and necessary to protect people and nature from unlawful harm – and this is true in the courts, given our string of recent legal victories.

"Labour's attempts to scapegoat claimants is deeply concerning. If ministers do not want to be challenged in court, they should act within the law as cases will not be allowed to proceed unless they have merit."

Dr Ruth Tingay, a prominent environmentalist and co-director of Wild Justice, said: “It sounds like Starmer is auditioning for a position in Trump’s cabinet.

"This proposal makes no sense from any angle. Firstly, campaigners will only be subject to judicial review if the High Court decides their case actually has merit.

"To allow another judge to block an appeal on the basis that the case has 'completely no merit' is therefore absurd and will lead to issues of accountability and lack of scrutiny.

“Second, and more importantly, economic growth based on environmental and climate degradation is a loser’s game, and we will all pay the price.”