Monitoring and auditing: after the decision - Introduction to Environmental Impact Assessment - page 205

There has not, until recently, been much emphasis in auditing studies on the important
area of predictive techniques audit, and on the value of particular predictive techniques.
Where there have been studies, they have tended to focus on identifying errors associated
with predictive methods rather than on explaining the errors. There is a need to develop
appropriate audit methodologies, and as more projects are implemented there should be
more scope for such studies. The pioneering study by Wood on visibility, noise and air
quality impacts, using GIS to audit and model EIA errors, provides an example of a way
forward for such work (Wood 1999a, b, 2000).
7.5 A UK case study: monitoring and auditing the local socio-
economic impacts of the Sizewell B PWR construction project
7.5.1 Background to the case study
Although monitoring and auditing impacts are not mandatory in EIA procedures in the
UK, the physical and socioeconomic effects of developments are not completely ignored.
For example, a number of public agencies monitor particular pollutants. LPAs monitor
some of the conditions attached to development permissions. However, there is no
systematic approach to the monitoring and auditing of impact predictions and mitigation
measures. This case study reports on one attempt to introduce a more systematic,
although still very partial, approach to the subject.
In the 1970s and early 1980s, Britain had an active programme of nuclear power
station construction. This included a commitment, since revised, to build a family of
PWR stations. The first such station to be approved was Sizewell B in East Anglia. The
approval was controversial, and followed the longest public inquiry in UK history.
Construction started in 1987, and the project was completed in 1995. The IAU in the
School of Planning at Oxford Brookes University had studied the impacts of a number of
power stations and made contributions to EISs, with a focus on the socioeconomic
impacts. A proposal was made to the relevant public utility, the CEGB, that the
construction of Sizewell B provided an invaluable opportunity to monitor in detail the
project construction stage, and to check on the predictions made at the public inquiry and
on the mitigating conditions attached to the project's approval. Although the predictions
were not formally packaged in an EIS, but rather as a series of reports based on the
inquiry, the research was extensive and comprehensive (DoEn 1986). The CEGB
supported a monitoring study, which began in 1988. To the credit of the utility, which is
now Nuclear Electric/British Energy following privatization, there was a continuing
commitment to the monitoring study—despite the uncertainty about further PWR
developments in Britain. Monitoring reports for the whole construction period and on the
project's operation have now been completed (Glasson et al. 1989-97).
7.5.2 Operational characteristics of the monitoring study
It is important to clarify the objectives of the monitoring study, otherwise irrelevant
information may be collected and resources wasted. Figure 7.3 outlines the scope of the
study. The development under consideration is the construction stage of the Sizewell B