Construction of a controversial new Chinese embassy was given the green light on Friday after the high court dismissed a challenge from neighbours.
The Royal Mint Court residents’ association (RMCRA), which brought the case against the government, immediately announced plans to appeal against the decision, in a move that could cause further delays to the project. The debate over planning permission for the new embassy has been a sore point of British-Chinese relations in recent years.
The RMCRA represents people and businesses who live and operate from properties in Royal Mint Court, the historic site that the Chinese government bought for £255m in 2018.
The association argued that the government had been unlawful in granting planning permission and that it had failed to assess the human rights considerations of the project.
In January the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government gave permission for China to build the vast new diplomatic outpost, which would be Beijing’s biggest in Europe.
The decision was delayed for months after the planning application was taken out of the hands of the local council, Tower Hamlets, which had originally rejected it on security grounds. Senior spy officials later advised the government that the risks to UK national security could be controlled and dealt with.
The high court rejected the RMCRA’s arguments. It said there was no evidence of the Chinese government interfering with the human rights of the residents, “even though they had strongly objected to the proposed embassy and had been involved in protests”.
The government said it “conscientiously and carefully had regard” to the residents’ concerns.
Ricardo Paulo Gama, a solicitor at Leigh Day, the law firm representing the residents’ association, said he hoped a higher court would be “braver” in considering the grounds of appeal.
The RMCRA raised more than £220,000 to fund the legal challenge. The group is supported by the Inter-parliamentary Alliance on China (Ipac), a cross-party group of parliamentarians focused on China.
Luke de Pulford, the executive director of Ipac, said: “We have together already prevented the Chinese Communist party from breaking ground at Royal Mint Court for more than seven months.
“The fight continues and we all want to win this case and to stop the embassy.”
Mark Nygate, a representative of the RMCRA, said: “While we were also disappointed with today’s judgment, we knew this was going to be a long [process], and we intend to go all the way through.”
Nygate said that it was a battle of “David versus two Goliaths”, the British and the Chinese governments.
The Chinese government was not a party to the legal challenge. It has criticised the delays to the project and Xi Jinping, China’s leader, raised the matter directly with Keir Starmer, the then UK prime minister, during a phone call in 2024.
Plans to redevelop the British embassy in Beijing have been blocked pending approval of the Chinese embassy’s new site in London.
