Widening the scope: strategic environmental assessment - Introduction to Environmental Impact Assessment - page 374

( Source: ODPM 2003.)
Purchase Bill 2003, sustainability appraisal would become mandatory for Regional
Spatial Strategies and Local Development Documents. Sustainability appraisal and SEA
both involve identifying and evaluating likely effects of the plan (and options), and
reducing significant negative effects where possible. Both aim to help make a plan more
sustainable. The key additional requirements of SEA are a description of the
environment, more transparent consideration of alternatives, more formal consideration
of mitigation me asures for any significant negative impacts, monitoring and public
consultation. The SEA Directive and guidance also focus more clearly on the
environment than sustainability appraisal does. Some socioeconomic factors such as
(human) population, human health, material assets and cultural heritage are included,
whilst others such as equity and jobs are not. This is in contrast to sustainability appraisal
which covers the full range of social and economic issues. In practice, this complicated
wording has made it difficult to identify just where SEA ends and sustainability appraisal
begins (Therivel 2004).
The Directive also differs from sustainability appraisal in its “baseline-led” approach
(Smith & Sheate 2001). Essentially SEA, according to the Directive, involves describing
the baseline environment, identifying environmental problems from this, and possibly
identifying different ways of resolving them (or at least not aggravating them).
Sustainability appraisal, instead, is “objectives-led”: it identifies sustainability objectives
that the plan should aim to achieve, and possibly different ways of achieving them. SEA
thus tries to solve today's problems; sustainability appraisal to achieve tomorrow's
vision.
The ODPM's (2003) guidance notes that SEA objectives can be set, and proposes
some objectives, but does not require them; notes that the assessment process can apply
to the full gamut of social and economic as well as environmental topics; and suggests
that alternatives can focus on problems or visions. Further guidance on integrated
sustainability appraisal and SEA is expected in 2004.
12.5 Carrying out SEA under the SEA Directive
At the time of writing (early 2004), no SEAs had yet been completed in England under
the SEA Directive. However, nine full and partial pilot SEAs were carried out as part of
the development of the ODPM guidance (ODPM 2004). Table 12.1 lists the authorities
involved and the key themes of these studies. Other early partial SEAs (e.g. from Chapter
9) had also been carried out on an ad hoc basis. These give an indication of the stages and
techniques that one might expect of future SEAs. This section discusses these stages and
techniques. It is based heavily on Levett-Therivel (2004).
A. Setting the context and establishing the baseline
The early, context-setting stages of SEA—identification of SEA objectives, collection of
environmental baseline data, description of links to other plans and identification of
environmental problems—are best carried out in parallel, with feedback from one to the