SEA APPLICATION IN MAJOR SECTORS:
LESSONS LEARNED AND FUTURE VISIONS
SEA Application in the UK, Poland and
Portugal – A consultant’s perspective
Cristina West (Atkins UK), Joanna Borzuchowska (WS
Atkins – Polska) and Ana Ferreira (WS Atkins Portugal)
21st September 2011
Prague
Structure of presentation
●
Review of SEA application – enactment, sectors, planning levels
●
SEA guidance - comparison
●
SEA case studies in England, Poland and Portugal - findings
●
Main strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in current
practice of SEA
●
Future vision and way forward
2
Enactment of the SEA Directive
EU Directive 2001/42/EC on the Assessment of the Effects of certain
Plans and Programmes on the Environment (known as the SEA
Directive) :
- published in 2001
- deadline for transposition by Member States of July 2004
The SEA Directive became law:
- UK (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) in July 2004
through the Environmental Assessment of Plans and Programmes
Regulations 2004
- Portugal by the Decree Law 232/2007 of 15 June
Previous to this there was no formal requirement for environmental
assessments of plans and programmes in either country .
3
Enactment of SEA Directive (contd.)
In Poland:
- a formal requirement for the preparation of “environmental reports”
applying to local land use plans already existed since the 1990s.
- Act of 2000 (Access to Information, public participation in decision
making and environmental impact assessment) and Act of 2001
(Environmental Protection) further regulated environmental assessment
of certain plans and programmes requiring coverage of a wider range of
plans as opposed to just local development plans.
- formal transposition of SEA Directive took place through successive
amendments to the Act of 2001 and finally through the new Act of 2008
(Access to Information, public participation in decision making and
environmental impact assessment with further amendments).
4
Application - UK
Sectors
Planning level
●
●
Local
●
Regional
●
National
●
●
●
●
Transport
Land use (SEA as part of SA in
England)
Waste and minerals (SEA as
part of SA in England)
Water
Energy
Second generation SEAs already
taking place in sectors such as
Transport and Water as
planning cycles re-start
Atkins UK has been involved in
over 60 SEAs in the UK
covering most sectors and at
the three levels of planning.
5
Application - Poland
Sectors
●
Land use
●
Transport
●
Energy
●
Cross-sectoral
Planning level
●
Local (mainly)
● National
WS Atkins - Polska has been involved in the
national level SEAs of The Polish Spatial
Development Concept and of The High Speed
Rail Programme as well as a number of local
level SEAs for spatial development studies and
local land use plans.
6
Application - Portugal
Sectors
Planning level
●
●
National Strategic Framework
for European Funding (QREN
2007-2013 (cross-sectoral)
●
Regional Operational
Programmes (cross-sectoral)
●
Land use
●
Transport
●
Water
●
Energy
●
●
Local
Regional
National
Atkins Portugal has been involved
in over 10 SEA processes in
waste sector at the national
level, water sector at the river
basin and reservoir levels, the
transport sector at regional and
municipal level and in the
electricity sector.
7
SEA Guidance
Countries generally took upon them to develop specific guidance
on how to undertake SEA:
– ‘A Practical Guide to the Strategic Environmental Assessment
Directive’ was published in the UK in 2005
– ‘Guia de boas práticas para Avaliação Ambiental Estratégica Orientações metodológicas’ was published in Portugal in 2007
– No specific guide in Poland (apart from 2008 legislative act)
All three countries arrived, although in different points in time, at
a five staged process with many similarities:
–
–
–
–
–
Scoping & Scoping Report
Assessment & Environmental Report
Public consultation
Environmental Statement
Monitoring after implementation
8
SEA process in Poland
Adoption of a decision on undertaking works
to prepare the document
STAGE A:
Scoping
Preparation
of the
document
STAGE B:
Environmental
assessment including
preparation of the
environmental report
STAGE C:
Consultations
Consideration of remarks
and opinions
STAGE D:
Preparation of the environmental
statement
Approval of the
document
Monitoring
9
SEA Guidance (contd.)
But also with some differences:
– Poland more reliant on EU guidance published than other two
countries. Handbook on SEA for Cohesion Policy 2007-2013 and the
Handbook “Assessments of plans and projects significantly affecting
Natura 2000 sites”
– A clear objectives-led and evidence based process in the UK; not so
clear in the other two countries
– A clear requirement for an iterative process for the development of the
plan and the SEA in the UK and to some extent in Portugal; not so
clear in Poland
– Clear mention of alternatives in UK and Portuguese guidance; not so
clear for Poland
– In Portugal, after the public consultation process, a Consultation
Report is issued with the analysis of the results and the decisions
taken. This is in addition to the Environmental Statement
10
SEA Case Studies
England
• Derby Local Transport Plan 3
• Southern Water plc Water Resources Management Plan
Poland
• Polish Spatial Development Concept (together with the
Institute for Sustainable Development)
• Spatial Development Study of Opole City
Portugal
• National Waste Management Plan and Strategic Hospital
Waste Plan
• Alentejo and Algarve coastal areas Roadway Network
Plan
11
Aspects considered:
●
Relationship of SEA team with the planning team: How was it?
●
Scoping exercises: How difficult or easy where they?
●
Plan objectives setting: Did SEA influence these?
●
Development and assessment of alternatives: where there alternatives? Did
the most sustainable alternatives make it to the final plan?
●
Take up of SEA Recommendations: where these taken up to the extent
considered necessary?
●
Consultation exercises: where these useful? Was a wider engagement
achieved?
12
Water Resources
Management Plan
Initial Options Screening
Definition and agreement of
WRMP process, data and
assumptions
Technical supporting studies
and analysis
Options appraisal and
refinement
Identification of preferred
strategy
Analysis of alternatives within
preferred strategy
Analysis of regional context of
preferred strategy
Produce WRMP – Draft for
Consultation
Strategic Environmental
Assessment
Scoping
Identify baseline, set
objectives and agree
framework for assessment of
options
Scoping report consultation
Options
Identification and assessment
of significant environmental
effects of options
Assessment of WRMP – Draft
for Consultation Preferred
Strategy
Produce Environmental
Report
Public Consultation on Water Resources Management Plan Draft for Consultation and Environmental Report
Incorporate comments in
WRMP, undertake any
additional modelling and
assessment of options
Incorporate comments and
update Environmental Report
as required
Prepare SEA Statement
Issue Final WRMP
Issue Final Environmental
Report
Issue SEA Statement
13
Strenghts
●
A good degree of alignment between countries with national legislation and
guidance recommending an integrated process for plan and SEA
development potentially leading to comparable SEA processes and results.
●
SEA is contributing to an improved organisation and structure of the whole
planning procedure leading to more transparent processes, for example
through the requirements for public consultation and the preparation of
environmental reports and environmental statements.
●
SEA is making a positive contribution to plans in various sectors and at
various planning levels, as a minimum as an awareness raising exercise and
as a maximum through delivering real change in direction.
14
Weaknesses
●
Assembling the right baseline information often proves to be difficult as
decisions have to be made on how much of and what kind of information
should be collated. This may result in not very well targeted exercises
(and very lengthy reports) which aren’t effective decision-making and
public consultation tools.
●
Many plan makers have difficulty in generating reasonable alternatives,
in particular for higher level plans.
●
The SEA Directive doesn’t indicate what constitutes a ‘reasonable
alternative’ and that has led to different interpretations of ‘reasonability’
and in some cases to no alternatives being considered at all.
●
SEA is changing the contents of the plans only slightly in most cases.
There is a fairly widespread perception among plan makers that they
merely need to show to be taking account of the Directive rather than
actually changing the plan to accommodate major SEA
recommendations.
15
Opportunities
●
As SEA as an iterative process during plan development evolves and
matures this will provide opportunities for shorter and more focussed plan
making processes. Recessionary trends will very likely accelerate this.
●
Early influencing of the objectives of the plan through the SEA provides an
excellent opportunity to embed the SEA objectives in the plan objectives.
●
As plan makers become more familiar with the SEA process there is more
scope for real change of direction to be achieved (rather than just minor
changes being made to the plans) as plan makers themselves can be
advocates for SEA.
●
Closer cooperation between the planning and environmental teams in the
preparation of plans and in extremis the fusion of the two teams into one
single team will lead to plans which are more environmentally sustainable.
16
Threats
●
SEA process has proved to be relatively lengthy, introducing additional iterations
into plan making and additional and wider consultation. Processes in England and
Portugal appear to have coped well with these additional requirements by building
in additional time. In Poland there appears to be an issue with the length of time
allowed to the extent that SEA is undertaken in a rush to the potential detriment of
its quality.
●
Undertaking SEA as EIA (ie. very little or no iterative process as the plan
develops) works against achieving the desired result of improving the
environmental performance of the plan.
●
It is particularly difficult to ensure that environmental recommendations which are
not in alignment with the prevailing political vision are implemented in the plan.
●
Also, there is often not much place for ‘negative’ assessment with attempts being
made by plan makers to change the direction of the assessment.
17
Future vision and way forward
“SEA must be embedded in plan making and achieve a real change of
direction in the plans”
●
During SEA Scoping, there is a need to target the information to address
the significant decisions that the plan is making and effectively scope out
issues and information which aren’t relevant.
●
More emphasis should be given to start the SEA process as soon as the
planning process begins.
●
Sufficient time needs to be built into the planning process to
accommodate the requirements of SEA.
●
More guidance is required on how to generate alternatives and on what
constitutes a ‘reasonable’ alternative.
●
Time must be invested by those undertaking SEA in early discussions to
‘educate’ planners on SEA matters and then throughout the process to
ensure that the SEA has a real influence on the plan.
18
Thank you.
Any questions?
For contact: cristina.west@atkinsglobal.com
19