Natural England concedes farming interests must not drive Badger cull decisions following legal challenge.

Wild Justice and Badger Trust secure an acknowledgement that farming interests and budget pressures must not influence culling decisions.

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: Key concessions from Natural England (NE) and Defra were made, recognising that farming interests, political pressure, and budget considerations should not be factors in authorising Badger culls.

Natural England stated that lessons will be learned with regard to its decision making when it comes to Badger culling, following the legal audit from this case.

The long, drawn-out legal challenge (starting in August 2024 and concluding in June 2026) has also set a landmark precedent for access to environmental justice, with the Court rejecting Natural England's attempt to remove standard costs protections for claimants under the Aarhus Convention.

As a result, Natural England has signalled that it might never make this sort of application again.

A long-awaited judicial review has shed 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:

1. Consequences for Natural England’s quote: ‘wider relationships within the farming community’

2. Consequences for Natural England’s relationship with Defra

3. Natural England’s exposure to compensation claims from the farming industry

4. Pressure to meet farming industry timelines and avoid, quote, ‘questions raised by the NFU (National Farmers Union)

5. Consequences for Natural England’s budget, including potential staff layoffs and wellbeing issues.

Following the distribution of this document, Natural England granted 26 supplementary Badger cull licences on 3 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 neither accessed nor 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 by Natural England 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 be 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 cost protections for Wild Justice and Badger Trust’s case under the Aarhus Convention, which would render such a legal challenge unaffordable for the non-profit organisations.

In a ground-breaking judgement, the Court emphatically rejected Natural England’s efforts, affirming that legal challenges of this kind quote ‘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.

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 NE and DEFRA that factors such as appeasing farmers, 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, in which 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 incurred additional costs. They could easily have conceded the central points at issue when raised in correspondence two years ago, rather than, in one instance, on the afternoon of our hearing. 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.