Current Practice in the Strategic Environmental Assessment of Development Plans in England

Michael Short, Carys Jones, Jeremy Carter, Mark Baker and Christopher Wood

Regional Studies, 2004, vol. 38, issue 2, 177-190

Abstract: Short M., Jones C., Carter J., Baker M. and Wood C. (2004) Current practice in the strategic environmental assessment of development plans in England, Reg. Studies 38, 177-190. In the UK, strategic environmental assessment has been applied to the full hierarchy of development plans in the form of environmental appraisal. Government guidance in England contains a forceful recommendation to local planning authorities to assess the environmental effects of proposed development plans by carrying out an environmental appraisal of their policies and proposals. This advice has grown in importance with the adoption of the European Directive on strategic environmental assessment. Research undertaken into current appraisal practice provides a context for the implementation of the Directive in England. The results show a broadly positive outlook towards strategic environmental assessment and a move towards using sustainability appraisal. Furthermore, they show other benefits from the process additional to assessing the core environmental impacts of the plan. However, it is clear that there remain major structural weaknesses and concerns in the manner in which strategic environmental assessment processes are implemented. Thus, more than two-thirds of the respondents to a survey stated that the appraisal had little or no influence on development plan objectives and policies, and nearly two-thirds believed that their plan would have developed in the same manner without any appraisal having been undertaken.

Keywords: Environmental appraisal; Sustainability appraisal; Development plans; Strategic environmental assessment; Evaluation de l'impact sur l'environnement; Evaluation durable; Schemas directeurs; Etude strategique de l'impact sur l'environnement; Wertschatzung der Umwelt; Wertschatzung der Nachhaltigkeit; Entwicklungsplane; Strategische Umwelteinschatzung; Valoracion de impacto ambiental; Valoracion de sostenibilidad; Planes de desarrollo; Evaluacion estrategica de impacto ambiental (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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DOI: 10.1080/0034340042000190154

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