As an applicant for an environmental permit, are you always an interested party? Not if the activity cannot be realised!

When your licence application is rejected and you, the applicant, object to this, you naturally expect to be an interested party. After all, you are the one who submitted the permit application and the one who received the rejection. In some cases, however, you are then deceived.

This was also the case in the ruling by the interim relief judge of the Overijssel District Court on 18 March 2025. In this case, the applicant wanted the dirt road alongside his plot to be paved. The road was owned by the municipality and therefore the municipality's cooperation was required. The municipality refused to cooperate. The applicant then paved the road as yet. The municipality then initiated enforcement proceedings and imposed an administrative order, to which the applicant appealed. He also submitted a permit application to legalise the paving of the dirt road (as yet). The applicant's objection was declared unfounded and therefore the applicant appealed and applied to the court for injunctive relief. This was because he believed that there was a concrete prospect of legalisation.

The interim relief judge did not follow this view and referred to established case law, which states that the applicant for a permit is in principle presumed to be an interested party in a decision on the application, unless it is made plausible that the activity cannot be realised.

According to the preliminary relief judge, it is likely that the paving of the dirt road cannot be legalised and the municipality is therefore going to reject the permit application. The applicant cannot therefore be considered an interested party; there is no admissible application and therefore no concrete prospect of legalisation. The judge added that there is no reason to make a distinction between an application for a permit for an activity that has yet to be performed and an application with a view to legalising an activity that has already been performed. 

Do you doubt whether you are an interested party in a decision and whether your objection or appeal will be admissible? If so, please contact Gerard van der Wende or with Fleur Huisman. 

You can read the ruling here.