Mr Justice Irwin has granted permission for a judicial review of DEFRA's decision to allow badgers to be killed in England at night while they are running free.

The planned culls are part of the government's strategy to eradicate Bovine TB.

The Badger Trust has successfully won a right for its arguments regarding the cost, validity and effectiveness of the culls to be heard in the High Court.

The Badger Trust's solicitor Gwendolen Morgan explains: "We are pleased that the court has given the Badger Trust's challenge the green light on all three grounds.

"The badger cull as proposed would make matters worse at great cost to farmers, badgers and rural communities..."

The Badger Trust's legal challenge is that the government has authorised licences to reduce the rate of new incidences of Bovine TB but argues reduction is not the purpose which the legal power was granted for.

The cull proposals factor in only a 12-16 per cent reduction in Bovine TB after nine years therefore they do not meet the strict legal test of preventing the spread of disease says the Badger Trust.

The Badger Trust also challenges the plans on cost grounds because the cull is projecting its cost-estimates based on a free shooting method which could be abandoned after a year for more costly trapping methods.

The charity also contends the government's arrangement with Natural England, who will issue the licenses, is invalid under the Protection of Badgers Act 1992, because badger culls are the Secretary of State's responsibility.

The Badger Trust considers these factors render the badger cull proposals unlawful...

Animal welfare charities including the Badger Trust, Animal Aid and others have been arguing since last July when the cull plans were announced that the plans to shoot badgers were inhumane. But what's more the culls were ill thought out from a practical point of view, likely to spiral in cost as well as be ineffective; and worse still likely to be counterproductive...

The opponents of the culls are backed by scientific evidence suggesting the plans to licence farmers to shoot badgers in selected areas at night may in fact amount to a formula for spreading the disease, because infected badgers are likely to be dispersed by the shooting method.

The UK government previously commissioned research by the Independent Scientific Group on Cattle TB (ISG) to conduct a Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) to assess the impact on Bovine TB in cattle of culling. Incredibly the research took almost ten years and at a cost of a staggering £50 million and 11,000 culled badgers, the report concluded that: "badger culling can make no meaningful contribution to cattle TB control in Britain."

The weight of evidence stacked against the culls suggests the government proposals are rapidly descending into farce.

The case is expected to be heard in June 2012 at the High Court of London...

The news the English judicial review is set to go ahead follows an announcement in March that a similar proposed cull in Wales was being axed and replaced via a vaccination programme...

The decision in Wales followed a scientific review of the planned cull which posed question marks about its credibility.

Animal welfare supporters will have high hopes that the latest developments in England means the cull plans there are now likely to be axed too...