Strategic Environmental Assessment and Sustainability Appraisal

The new Planning Act requires Development Plan Documents and Supplementary Planning Guidance to contribute to the aim of sustainable development.

The government defines Sustainable Development as:

To ensure that policies and proposals in the Local Development Framework contribute to sustainable development, the Council will need to carry out a Sustainability Appraisal on all of the Local Development Documents, incorporating the requirements of the EU Directive on Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA).   This will allow the Council to assess the possible impact that the Council's policies might have on the environment, social and/or economic issues and help the preparation of plans which will promote sustainable forms of development.

The sustainability appraisal reports must be submitted to the Secretary of State as part of the examination of the 'soundness' of the Council's Development Plan Documents.

The Scoping Report is the first stage in the Sustainability Appraisal process for each of the Council's Local Development Documents. The Council has prepared a generic Scoping Report to apply to all Local Development Documents, copies of which are available to download below as pdf documents:

SA/SEA Scoping Report (Nov 2006) (813KB)

SA/SEA Scoping Report - Executive Summary (Nov 2006) (62KB)

2007 Updates to the Scoping Report (230KB)