« Previous | Contents | Next »
Listen
Environmental Assessment of Development Plans: Interim Planning Advice
PART 1
AN OVERVIEW OF ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT FOR PLANS
Background
The origins of environmental assessment of development plans
9. It has been normal practice for those preparing and commenting on development plans to consider their likely environmental effects. The principle of assessing the environmental consequences of plans is therefore not new. What the Directive requires, and this IPA explains, is the use of an explicit and systematic method to comprehensively and impartially identify and assess the environmental consequences of the plan.
10. The origins of environmental assessment of development plans lie in the limitations of environmental impact assessment on a project by project basis. Environmental impact assessment of projects has been criticised on the grounds that because it is a response to a specific development proposal, it may not address some wider or more fundamental considerations such as alternative solutions or strategic locational issues. Neither can it fully appraise the cumulative impact of a number of proposals, especially when they are individually too small to warrant an environmental assessment. Environmental assessment of development plans can help to address these matters by assessing alternative strategies or land uses and by considering the overall environmental effects of implementing a plan.
11. Environmental assessment, as a means of improving the environmental credentials of development plan policies and proposals, is also important because S.25 of the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997 requires that decisions on planning applications have to be made in accordance with the development plan, unless material considerations indicate otherwise.
The benefits of assessment
12. The potential benefits of assessing a development plan include:
- clarifying the plan's environmental aims and objectives;
- identifying aspects of the plan which may be inconsistent or in conflict with the planning authority's wider environmental aims;
- increasing the plan's sensitivity to environmental issues, particularly outwith designated environments;
- helping to choose between policy options and alternative locational strategies;
- explicitly considering the possible environmental consequences of policies and proposals;
- considering whether additional measures are needed to prevent, reduce or off-set adverse environmental effects;
- improving people's ability to participate in plan making by showing how environmental issues have been taken into account;
- ensuring that all stakeholders can engage in the process of helping to achieve a plan more in accord with the environmental aims of sustainable development;
- helping to prevent avoidable environmental damage; and
- influencing subsequent development proposals.
Case Study 1 Benefits of assessment The Conclusions of the Sustainability Appraisal of the Finalised Fife Structure Plan, 2001, reflected on the benefits of the assessment process. It concluded that the process had delivered added value to the Structure Plan, especially by providing the Council and the Scottish Ministers with more information about the contributions and implications of the plan. It had led to greater consistency throughout the plan and raised several issues that needed to be further addressed in the structure planning process. It had proved a useful tool in cataloguing, in a systematic way, those broad areas upon which the structure plan policies and objectives contribute to, or impact upon, achieving the Council's sustainability principles. Lessons learned would be used to improve the assessment process, and the plan, in the future. |
13. Environmental assessment should also provide a source of information and analysis for any subsequent environmental assessment of a specific project. A project environmental impact assessment (EIA) is likely to involve more detailed work, but it should not have to duplicate work already undertaken. An applicant ought to be able to draw upon and quote the environmental assessment of a development plan where relevant. It is, however, possible that an EIA of a particular project, drawing on more information and analysis, could yield conclusions which are at variance with the findings of a development plan assessment. Providing the results are well founded, an EIA should be seen as a positive contribution to the continuing assessment process and one which could be fed into the next review of the development plan.
« Previous | Contents | Next »