Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
statutory consultees are becoming increasingly familiar with the EIA process, but public
participation is likely to remain a weak aspect of EIA in the UK until developers and
competent authorities see the benefits exceeding the costs. However, as noted in Chapter
2 (Section 2.7), the transposition of the Aarhus Convention to provide for enhanced
public participation in environmental decision-making may provide an opportunity for
improvements in public participation in EIA (CEC 2001b).
A formal review of EIA is also rarely carried out, despite the availability of several
non-mandatory review guidelines and government advice on the use of environmental
information for decision-making. Such review procedures can contribute to the
processing of the EIS as part of the decision-making stage. The links between the quality
of an EIS and that of the planning decision is discussed in Chapter 8.
Several appeals against development consents or against competent authorities' failure
to require EIA have been brought to the UK courts or the EC. The UK courts have been
unwilling to overturn the decisions of competent authorities, and have generally given a
relatively narrow interpretation of the duties of competent author-ities under the EIA
regulations. The EC, by contrast, has challenged the UK Government on its
implementation of Directive 85/337 and on a number of specific decisions resulting from
this implementation.
More positively, the next step in a good EIA procedure is the monitoring of the
development's actual impacts and the comparison of actual and predicted impacts. This is
discussed in the next chapter.
Notes
1. Although this section refers to public consultation and participation together as “public
participation”, the two are in fact separate. Consultation is in essence an exercise concerning
a passive audience: views are solicited, but respondents have little active influence over any
resulting decisions. In contrast, public participation involves an active role for the public,
with some influence over any modifications to the project and over the ultimate decision.
2. Weston (1997) notes that LPAs need to be aware that they have the power to ask for further
information, and that failure to use it could later be seen as tacit acceptance of the
information provided. For instance, when deciding on an appeal for a Scottish quarry
extension, the Reporter noted that it was significant that the LPA had not requested further
information when they were processing the application, and had not objected to the EIS until
the development came to appeal.
3. Where the project has already been built without authorization, the competent authority
considers the environmental information when determining whether the project will be
demolished or not.
4. For instance, in the case of a Scottish appeal regarding a proposed quarry extension (Scottish
Office, P/PPA/SQ/336, 6 January 1992), the Reporter noted that: “The ES has been strongly
criticised…[it] does not demonstrate that a proper analysis of environmental impacts has
been made… Despite its shortcomings, the ES appears to me to comply broadly with the
statutory requirements of the EA regulations.”
5. An EC court case, for instance, ruled that Greenpeace had insufficient individual concerns to
contest a decision to use regional funds to help build power stations in the Canary Islands
(Greenpeace v Commission of the European Communities (1996) 8 Journal of
Environmental Law 139). Similar judgements have been made in the UK context.
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