Impact prediction, evaluation and mitigation - Introduction to Environmental Impact Assessment - page 149

the single evaluation criterion of money, and the assumption that £1 is worth the same to
any person, whether a tramp or a millionaire, a resident of a rich commuter belt or of a
poor and remote rural community. CBA also ignores distribution effects and aggregates
costs and benefits to estimate the change in the welfare of society as a whole.

Table 5.6 Cost-benefit analysis: presentation of
results: tangibles and intangibles

Category Alternative

1

Alternative
2

Tangibles

Annual benefits £B1 £b1

£B2 £b2

£B3 £b3

Total annual benefits £B1+B2+B3 £b1+b2+b3

Annual costs £C1 £c1

£C2 £c2

£C3 £c3

Total annual costs £C1+C2+C3 £c1+c2+c3

Net discounted present va due (NDPV) of benefits and costs over
“m” years at X%*

£D £E

Intangibles

Intangibles are likely to include costs and benefits I1 i1

I2 i2

I3 i3

I4 i4

Intangibles summation (undiscounted) I1+I2+I3+I4 i1+i2+i3+i4

*e.g. NPDV(Alt 1).

The planning balance sheet (PBS) is a variation on the theme of CBA, and it goes
beyond CBA in its attempts to identify, enumerate and evaluate the distribution of costs
and benefits between the affected parties. It also acknowledges the difficulty of attempts
to monetize the more intangible impacts. It was developed by Lichfield et al. (1975) to
compare alternative town plans. PBS is basically a set of social accounts structured into
sets of “producers” and “consumers” engaged in various transactions. The transaction