Origins and development - Introduction to Environmental Impact Assessment - page 42

practice in handling these relatively few large and significant proposals.
(DoE 1978)
The government's foreword to the PADC manual of 1981 also emphasized the need to
minimize the costs of EIA procedures: “It is important that the approach suggested in the
report should be used selectively to fit the circumstances of the proposed development
and with due economy” (Clark et al. 1981). As will be seen in later chapters, the
government remained sceptical for some time about the value of EIA, and about
extending its remit, as suggested by the EC.
By the early 1980s, more than 200 studies on the environmental impacts of projects in
the UK had been prepared on an ad hoc basis. These are listed by Petts & Hills (1982).
Many of these studies were not full EIAs, but focused on only a few impacts. However,
large developers such as British Petroleum, British Gas, the Central Electricity
Generating Board and the National Coal Board were preparing a series of increasingly
comprehensive statements. In the case of British Gas, these were shown to be a good
investment, saving the company £30 million in 10 years (House of Lords 1981a).
2.5 EC Directive 85/337
The development and implementation of Directive 85/337 greatly influenced the EIA
systems of the UK and other EU Member States. In the UK, central government research
on a UK system of EIA virtually stopped after the mid-1970s, and attention focused
instead on ensuring that any future Europe-wide system of EIA would fully incorporate
the needs of the UK for flexibility and discretion. Other Member States were eager to
ensure that the Directive reflected the requirements of their own more rigorous systems
of EIA. Since the Directive's implementation, EIA activity in all the EU Member States
has increased dramatically.
2.5.1 Legislative history
The EC had two main reasons for wanting to establish a uniform system of EIA in all its
Member States. First, it was concerned about the state of the physical environment and
eager to prevent further environmental deterioration. The EC's First Action Programme
on the Environment of 1973 (CEC 1973) advocated the prevention of environmental
harm: “the best environmental policy consists of preventing the creation of pollution or
nuisances at source, rather than subsequently trying to counteract their effects”, and, to
that end, “effects on the environment should be taken into account at the earliest possible
stage in all technical planning and decisionmaking processes”. Further Action
Programmes of 1977, 1983, 1987, 1992 and 2001 have reinforced this emphasis. Land-
use planning was seen as an important way of putting these principles into practice, and
EIA was viewed as a crucial technique for incorporating environmental considerations
into the planning process.
Second, the EC was concerned to ensure that no distortion of competition should arise
through which one Member State could gain unfair advantage by permitting
developments that, for environmental reasons, might be refused by another. In other