Sustainability Appraisal for Welwyn Garden City Town Centre & Broadwater Rd Supplementary Planning Documents (SPDs)
The Welwyn Hatfield Local Development Scheme was published in April 2005 and sets out the documents to be produced by the Council and the timescales for their production. The first Supplementary Planning Documents (SPDs) to be produced are -· Welwyn Garden City Town Centre & Campus East SPD· Broadwater Road West SPD
In preparing both of these documents the Council is now required to also undertake a ‘Sustainability Appraisal’ (SA) of the SPDs it produces. The purpose of SA is to promote sustainable development through better integration of sustainability considerations into the preparation and adoption of policies. The Government has set out in guidance that SA should:
· Take a long-term view of whether and how the area covered by the plan is expected to develop, taking account of the social, environmental and economic effects of the proposed plan;
· Provide a mechanism for ensuring that sustainability objectives are translated into sustainable planning policies;
· Reflect global, national, regional and local concerns;
· Provide an audit trail of how the plan has been revised to take into account the findings of the SA;
· Form an integral part of all stages of plan preparation, and
· Incorporate the requirements of the SEA directive.
Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA)
In addition to the Government’s requirement for a Sustainability Appraisal, recent European legislation also requires that an assessment of the significant environmental effects of certain plans and policies (including SPDs) be undertaken.
The requirement to carry out a SA and a SEA are distinct, however, the Government in its SA guidance makes it clear that they can combined into a single process, providing the requirements of both processes is met. Therefore where there is reference to SA, this is inclusive of the SEA process.
Stages of Sustainability Appraisal
SA is an iterative process that identifies and reports on the likely significant effects of a Development Plan Document (DPD) or Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) and the extent to which their implementation will achieve the aims of sustainable development. The various stages and tasks involved are summarised below
Stage A – Setting the context and objectives, establishing the baseline and deciding on the scope.
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Stage B – Developing and refining options
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Stage C – Appraising the effects of the DPD/SPD
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Stage D – Consultation on the preferred options and SA report
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Stage E – Monitoring implementation
Purpose of the Scoping Report including Consultation
Consultation on the draft Scoping Report ran for a five-week period from 10th May through to 14th June 2006 and sought to ensure that the Sustainability Appraisal will be comprehensive and robust enough to support the SPDs during the later stages of full public consultation and examination.
The Scoping Report sets out the findings of the first stage of the process (Stage A) for a Sustainability Appraisal of the Welwyn Garden City & Campus East and Broadwater Road West SPDs. Government guidance makes reference to the fact that a single scoping report can be produced for more than one DPD or SPD and in this case the Scoping Report completes Stage A of the SA/SEA process for the two SPDs noted above.
SEA Appendix 2 - Baseline Information
SEA Appendix 2 - Background Information