Case studies of EIA in practice - Introduction to Environmental Impact Assessment - page 255

were seen to be the responsibility of other companies under separate consent and EIA
procedures. The extensive nature of the transmission connections required to service the
new power station was not therefore apparent from an examination of the power station
ES. Although separate EIA procedures were in place for these other project components,
so that their environmental impacts would subsequently be considered, CPRE in its
complaint to the EC argued that, under the EIA Directive, the EIA for the power station
should have included the main environmental effects of its associated developments. The
failure to do so resulted in a piecemeal approach to EIA which, it was argued,
contravenes the requirement in the EIA Directive that all direct, indirect and secondary
effects of a project should be assessed prior to consent being granted.
Sheate (1995) summarizes the argument made by CPRE:
Concern was expressed that the Secretary of State did not see fit to require
further information on these aspects [the impacts of associated
developments], as he is entitled to do under the UK's own implementing
legislation. [The developer] had successfully received consent for the
power station even though the major impacts on the environment of the
electricity transmission lines, the gas pipeline, the gas processing facility
and the CHP pipeline did not feature in the accompanying documentation
provided to the Secretary of State for Energy. Since the relevant
information was not available to the Secretary of State—nor did he
request such information—it was argued that his decision might not have
been the same had all the relevant information been available to him.
Since the information was not contained in the ES, neither the public nor
interest groups had been alerted to these consequential impacts, which
might otherwise have caused a public inquiry to be held where the issue
would inevitably have been aired.
In the UK, responsibility for new transmission lines rests with the National Grid
Company (NGC), not the developer of the power station. NGC has an obligation to
connect a new electricity generator into the national grid, and—if significant
environmental impacts are likely—it must undertake its own EIA for new overhead lines
and major upgrades of existing lines. EIA does therefore take place for new transmission
lines (and for other types of associated development). However, this EIA process occurs
after the power station has been given consent, and it is therefore unable to influence the
decision over whether the power station should have been built in the first place, either in
that location or somewhere closer to the existing transmission network, hence minimizing
the adverse visual impacts of new overhead lines.
Essentially, the Wilton case revolved around the way in which “projects” are defined
for the purposes of EIA. The ES for Wilton power station referred to the “overall project”
as including both the power station and its associated developments, such as transmission
lines. However, because of the fact that different elements of this overall project were
subject to separate consent procedures, the project was divided into separate “sub-
projects”, with the environmental impacts of each being assessed separately and at
different time periods depending on the timescale of the various consent procedures.
CPRE argued that, under the Directive, it was not appropriate to assess the impacts of