A SEA Change - The Use of Strategic Environmental Assessment

I "launched" this blog on 1 June 2006 with a post entitled "East London/Thames Gateway Road-based River Crossings", promising further blogs on these subjects, so here we go again....

Incidentally, this post is going to provide the basis of correspondence with government departments next week. Re-Use, Re-Cycle if you can and Save Energy in such endeavours !

In my evidence to the Thames Gateway Bridge (TGB) Public Inquiry about this time last year, I argued that Transport for London (TfL) should have provided a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) for their proposal in order to demonstrate, amongst other things, that a full "Options Appraisal" (including appropriate public consultations) had been undertaken.

The best explanation that I've found of how the European Union Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive takes effect in member states is in an article in the August 2004 edition of the Journal of Planning Law (JPL). I mention this because, although the British government has produced its own guidance on the implementation of the SEA Directive, it seems that use of SEA to date has been somewhat "optional".

Thus TfL, for instance, have incorporated SEA into their work on behalf of the Mayor of London into the proposed introduction of a "Low Emissions Zone" for the Greater London area (published in July 2006), but not in relation to a road-based river crossing in East London which, on their own evidence, would add significantly to local air pollution.

Returning to the JPL article, this excellent account of "The Environmental Assessment of Plans and Programmes" by Jonathan Robinson and David Elvin QC states in its opening paragraph that SEA :

"....fills the gap not covered by the environmental impact directive 85/337/EEC in requiring the transparent assessment of the likely environmental effects of the hierarchy of plans and programmes which have a strategic role in directing not only development but other interventions in the environment".

The potential application of SEA is therefore very wide indeed. Moreover, just because SEA has been conducted at one level of plan development, does not preclude its use at a "lower" level of specificity.

With regard to the TGB, SEA is a statutory requirement for the East London Sub-Regional Development Framework, the planning context most relevant to the assessment of options for improving cross-river transport access. However, at the time of the TGB Public Inquiry, progress on the development framework (not yet subject to SEA) lagged behind that of the proposal before the inquiry : one reason for arguing that promotion of the TGB is premature.

In this type of situation, it is usual for the promoter of a particular scheme to argue that this cannot be delayed because the planning context is evolving, and this is what happened. Equally, it could be argued that TfL's case for the TGB was also evolving : one of the main reasons an inquiry predicted to last 4-6 weeks went on for nearly a year.

I understand that the TGB Inquiry Planning Inspectors are to submit their report to the Department for the Communities and Local Government (DCLG) very soon. DCLG is now the "custodian" of planning and, therefore, the use of Strategic Environmental Assessment. My recommendation, which I put to the Inquiry, is that TfL return to the "Options Stage" in considering additional cross-river transport access in East London. In other words, I'm looking for a SEA change from these proceedings !