Campaigners will be blocked from “excessive” legal challenges to planning decisions for major infrastructure projects including airports, railways and nuclear power stations as part of the government’s drive for economic growth.

High court judges will be given the power to rule that judicial reviews on nationally significant projects that they regard as “totally without merit” – and which can currently be brought to the courts three times – will be unable to go to appeal.

Keir Starmer said the change would “take the brakes off Britain” by reforming the planning system, sending a message to business to build more national infrastructure, as ministers desperately pursue opportunities to improve the economy.

“For too long, blockers have had the upper hand in legal challenges – using our court processes to frustrate growth,” he said.

“We’re putting an end to this challenge culture by taking on the nimbys and a broken system that has slowed down our progress as a nation.”

It is one of a range of measures being considered by the government as part of an all-encompassing dash for growth, which has caused alarm among environmental groups.

With GDP figures barely moving since the election, Rachel Reeves is looking at proposals from airport expansion to widespread deregulation in an effort to improve the UK’s economic outlook.

Government sources said the chancellor was “deeply unimpressed” with the pro-growth ideas presented by a number of the country’s biggest regulators when she met them last week, and has since instructed them to improve their plans.

She was so unhappy with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), sources said, that she intervened to force its chair, Marcus Bokkerink, out of his job.

Officials said only the submission by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) reflected the “urgency and focus” she is hoping to show in a speech on growth next week.

“I think the balance has moved too far in regulating for risk. Obviously, you know you’ve got to be able to protect consumers, but people should be able to take risks as well,” she told reporters at the global financial gathering in Davos.

The renewed emphasis on growth threatens to cause splits in the Labour party, including cabinet-level resistance over Reeves’s apparent support for a third runway at Heathrow airport.

But Reeves said: “This was the problem with the last government, that there was always somebody that said ‘Oh yes, of course we want to grow the economy, but we don’t like that investment, we don’t like that windfarm, we don’t like those pylons, we don’t like that airport, we don’t want that housing near us.’

“But the answer can’t always be no, and that’s been the problem in Britain for a long time, that when there was a choice between something that would grow the economy and anything else, anything else always won.

“When we say growth is the number one mission of this government, we mean it. That means it trumps other things.”

However, some environmentalists have expressed unease with the government’s drive to curtail legal challenges to infrastructure projects, of which they have promised to deliver 150 this parliament.

Official figures show that over half – 58% – of all ministerial decisions on major infrastructure projects taken since 2012 were taken to court, which the government said caused years of delay and added hundreds of millions of cost to projects.

​In February 2020, Starmer tweeted “congratulations to the climate campaigners” when plans for a third runway at Heathrow airport were ruled illegal by the court of appeal after a judicial review.

“There is no more important challenge than the climate emergency. That is why I voted against Heathrow expansion,” he said then.

Charles Banner, who led an independent review into legal challenges against Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) last year, said the plan would “weed out the worst offenders” by reducing the number of what the courts regard as spurious challenges available from three to one.

“There is a clear case for streamlining judicial reviews on consenting decisions for nationally significant infrastructure projects, given that delays to these projects cause real detriment to the public interest,” Lord Banner said.

“In the course of my review, I saw broad consensus – from claimants to scheme promoters – that a quicker system of justice would be in their interests, provided that cases can still be tried fairly.”

He added: “In particular, reducing the number of permission attempts to one for truly hopeless cases 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 paper permission stage – will be scrapped. Primary legislation will be changed so that where a judge in an oral hearing at the high court deems the case “totally without merit”, it will not be possible to ask the court of appeal to reconsider. A request to appeal second attempt will be allowed for other cases.

Government officials said the approach would ensure access to justice and protection against genuine issues of propriety, while pushing back against a “challenge culture” where small pressure groups used the courts to obstruct decisions taken in the national interest.

They cited offshore windfarms in East Anglia, the new nuclear power station Sizewell C and the A47 national highway project as examples of projects delayed for years after local campaigners and environmental activists launched judicial reviews, which were all then dismissed.

Green groups also have voiced concerns over plans to overrule environmental protections to free up the planning system with a new Nature Restoration Fund which, the government said, would not allow protected species such as newts 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 the government.

“Friends of the Earth only brings cases we think are strong and necessary to protect people and nature from unlawful harm – and considering our string of recent legal wins, so do the courts.

“It is deeply concerning that Labour is attempting to scapegoat claimants. If ministers don’t want to be challenged in the courts, they should act within the law, because already cases aren’t allowed to proceed unless they have merit.”

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

“This proposal doesn’t make any sense whichever way you look at it. First, campaigners can only take judicial reviews if their case does have merit, as judged by the high court.

“So to then allow another judge to block an appeal on the basis that the case is ‘totally without merit’ is nonsensical and will lead to problems 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’ll all be paying the price of that.”