An overview of UK practice to date - Introduction to Environmental Impact Assessment - page 248

when the system first appeared I was rather sceptical because I believed
we had always taken all these matters into account. Now I am a big fan of
the process. It enables me to focus on the detail of individual aspects at an
early stage. (DoE 1996)
Consultees broadly agree that EIA creates a more structured approach to handling
planning applications, and that an EIS gives them “something to work from rather than
having to dig around for information ourselves”. However, when issues are not covered
in the EIS, consultees are left in the same position as with non-EIA applications: some of
their objections are not because the impacts are bad but because they have not been given
any information on the impacts or any explanation of why a particular impact has been
left out of the assessment. Consultees feel that an EIA can give them data on sites that
they would not otherwise be able to afford to collect themselves, and that it can help
parties involved in an otherwise too often confrontational planning system to reach
common ground (DoE 1996).
8.7 Summary
All the parties involved agree that EIA as practised in the UK helps to improve projects
and protect the environment, although the system could be much stronger: EIA is thus at
least partly achieving its main aims. There are time and money costs involved, but there
are also tangible benefits in the form of project modifications and more informed
decision-making. When asked whether EIA was a net benefit or cost, “the overwhelming
response from both planning officers and developers/consultants was that it had been a
benefit. Only a small percentage of both respondents felt that EIA had been a drawback”
(Jones 1995). Some stages in EIA—particularly early scoping, good consultation of all
the relevant parties and the preparation of a clear and unbiased EIS—are consistently
cited as leading to particularly clear and cost-effective benefits (DoE 1996, Kobus & Lee
1993). More recent research by Weston (2002) reinforces this view. He suggests that
there appears to be some agreement that—“LPAs and developers have grown to regard
EIA as a positive procedural part of the planning process. Yet one consultant stated that
they still 'come across clients who believe that an ES can be produced from scratch in a
month and should contain the least possible information'”. Chapter 9 provides a set of
primarily UK case studies which seek to exemplify some of the issues of and responses to
particular aspects of the EIA process. Suggestions for future directions in EIA in the UK
and beyond are discussed in Chapter 11.
Notes
1. This was made up largely of landfill/raise projects (10 per cent), wastewater or sewage
treatment schemes (4 per cent) and incinerators (3 per cent).
2. In terms of type and size of project, location, local planning authority and developer.
3. “Satisfactory” for the IAU criteria is very similar to “satisfactory” for the Lee & Colley