Case studies of EIA in practice - Introduction to Environmental Impact Assessment - page 273

need to relocate the Ballyseedy Monument, a local war memorial, should one of the
alternative routes be adopted. However, the need to relocate the Monument arose only
with one of the six main alternatives considered and could therefore be avoided by the
adoption of one of the other alternative solutions.
• The alternatives would not necessarily result in greater adverse impacts than the
proposed scheme. For example, there was no evidence that, apart from one of the route
options, any alternative solution would result in the loss of more family homes than
the proposed scheme.
• Some of the public interest issues were not demonstrable, due to a lack of data. For
example, no quantified data was produced on the road safety implications of
alternative routes, compared with the proposed scheme. Evidence from the CC at the
CPO inquiry suggested that all alternatives examined by the Council were equally
safe. Also, it was not possible to argue that the proposed scheme was necessarily the
most cost-effective, since the costs of all the alternative route options had not been
worked out in detail. Indeed, it was suggested “that an alternative route may be
cheaper to construct because of the decreased disruption to existing road users, the
impact of construction on properties in the existing corridor and the reduction of some
mitigation costs” (Weston & Smith 1999). Another issue raised was the impact of
alternative routes on farm severance. Again, however, “there is little hard evidence to
show that this is an area which has either been examined in any great detail, been
quantified in any way or has been comparatively assessed against the [proposed]
scheme” (Weston & Smith 1999).
• The loss of habitat was a superior interest compared to most of the public interest
issues raised. Most of the public interest issues arising in the case were not equivalent
in importance to the loss of priority habitat, and could not therefore be regarded as
“overriding” interests. Examples include the loss of family homes and farm severance.
Although important issues at a local scale, these cannot be seen as equal in importance
to the need to protect the priority habitat, given the status of the latter in the EU
Habitats Directive. Similarly, in relation to archaeological impacts, in order to be of
“overriding” public interest, the archaeological feature affected would need to rank
higher than the priority habatation a European scale. There was no evidence that such
impacts would arise with any of the alternative routes.
One public interest issue that appeared to be of greater importance was the need to
relocate the Ballyseedy Monument, which arose with one of the alternative route options.
The Council and the local community generally consider the relocation of
the Monument to be unacceptable as it is considered one of the most
important modern monuments in Ireland. The Monument, however, has
no national or local statutory protection, whereas [Ballyseedy Wood] has
statutory protection [at European level] through the [Habitats] Directive…
On that basis, the relocation of the Monument, while clearly a very
important public interest issue, cannot be seen as an “overriding” public
interest in terms of the presumption established by the Directive to protect
the priority habitat. (Weston & Smith 1999)