Widening the scope: strategic environmental assessment - Introduction to Environmental Impact Assessment - page 378

PPS 1 Relevant policies

are:…

Plan provides for this by:…

… …

Local

…

( Source: Levett-Therivel 2004.)

Finally, this stage of SEA should identify any environmental or sustainability problems
that the plan should take into consideration. This could be done by identifying where the
authority is not achieving environmental targets/thresholds, doing worse than other
similar authorities, and/or trends are getting worse (an example is shown in Table 12.2);
analysing Community Strategies to identify local residents' perceptions of key
environmental problems; identifying where, under current trends, the plan is not expected
to meet the requirements of other policies/etc.; and/or discussions with statutory
consultees and other environmental experts. Ideally several of these approaches would be
used, and the draft list of problems should be tested against planners' expert judgement.

B. Deciding the scope of SEA and developing alternatives
Next the SEA should describe the plan options or sub-components being put forward, and
what issues were considered when putting them forward. The options put forward should
be informed by:

• the environmental problems identified in A: ideally the plan should help to solve the
problems, but at minimum it should not make them worse;
• any options suggested by statutory consultees;
• the sustainable “hierarchy of alternatives”—demand reduction, different ways of
meeting demand, location of projects/infrastructure—recommended by the ODPM
(2003).

Options should also meet the plan objectives and be realistic.
At this point, the statutory authorities should be consulted about the scope and level of
detail of the information which must be included in the environmental report. The
statutory consultees in England are the Countryside Agency, EN, English Heritage and
the Environment Agency.

C. Assessing the effects of the plan
Several aspects of a plan may require impact assessment and mitigation at different
stages during the development of the plan:

• broad strategic option(s) (e.g. whether housing should be at the edge of existing towns,
scattered throughout an authority or in one large new town). These may need to be
evaluated and compared early in the plan-making process before preferred option(s)
can be agreed on;