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Ricardo Gama

Senior associate solicitor

Ricardo specialises in environmental claims and planning law

Climate change Environment Judicial review Planning

Ricardo is a senior associate solicitor in the human rights and public law department of Leigh Day, focusing on environmental claims.

He has extensive expertise in environmental and planning law including in judicial review proceedings in the High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court, as well as in planning appeal and enforcement inquiries. He has detailed knowledge of the EIA, SEA and habitats regimes.

Before joining the firm 2021, Ricardo worked at Richard Buxton Environmental and Public Law, after several years as a planning lawyer and founding associate of Town Legal LLP, a leading planning firm. Prior to his career in law, he studied Mathematics and Philosophy at Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford.

Cases on which he has worked include:

  • A38 Derby Junctions: Successful quashing of development consent for road scheme in Derby on climate grounds.
  • M62 J20-25 Smart Motorway: Successfully persuaded Highways England to withdraw notice which would allow a smart motorway scheme to be built under permitted development rights on the basis that its climate impacts had not been properly assessed.
  • Andrews v Secretary of State: Judicial review of a written ministerial statement which would scope out large numbers of fracking proposals from consideration against local planning policies.
  • Aireborough Neighbourhood Development Forum v Leeds City Council: Successful quashing of Leeds site allocations plan on the basis that a drop in objectively assessed housing need had not been properly addressed during the local plan process.
  • Hopkins Homes v Suffolk Coastal: Supreme Court case regarding the correct approach to determining when policies, and particularly housing policies, are out of date for the purposes of the “tilted balance” in the National Planning Policy Framework.
  • Opposing expansion of Bristol Airport: acting for campaigners in public inquiry, focusing on climate impacts of expansion.

News and blogs

News Article
RAF Lakenheath
Environment Nuclear weapons Planning

CND legal letter to Ministry of Defence over nuclear weapons storage in Suffolk

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) has sent a legal letter to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and Suffolk County Council highlighting concerns over the potential stationing of nuclear weapons at an RAF base in Lakenheath, Suffolk.

News Article
Chicken
Environment Water Pollution Chicken farming

High Court ruling adds weight to challenge to intensive poultry unit in Shropshire

A judicial review case supported and funded by campaign group River Action as part of its drive to limit the uncontrolled growth of large-scale intensive poultry production farms has been strengthened by an important High Court ruling this week. 

News Article
Uyghur Village
Human rights SHEIN Uyghur

Stop Uyghur Genocide welcomes Parliamentary Committee’s interrogation of Shein supply chains

Stop Uyghur Genocide (SUG) has welcomed the Business and Trade Committee’s robust interrogation of a Shein legal representative over the fashion company’s supply chains.

Accreditations

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