2 Planning Applications for ‘EIA Development’
12.124 The EIA procedures, including the need to supply and environmental statement s apply to all ‘EIA development’. This is defined in regulation 2 of the 2011 regulations as including:
(i)All Sch 1 projects.
Schedule 1 lists projects requiring EIA in all cases, as laid down in Annex 1 to the Directive itself.(ii)Schedule 2 developments likely to have significant effects on the environment by virtue of their size nature or location. Schedule 2 developments will only require EIA however, in one of two instances. Either the development must be located wholly or partly in a sensitive area (defined to include areas such as SSSIs, National, Parks, AONBs, Special Protection Areas or European Sites for wildlife, for instance), or an applicable threshold set out in the second column of Sch 2 is exceeded. Thresholds for assessing the likely impact of various developments and triggering the application of the EIA requirements are set out in the right hand column of Sch 2 and are further explained in Ministerial Guidance.170
12.125 A number of agricultural operations are included in Sch 2 and are therefore potentially subject to EIA if they have a significant effect on the environmental having regard to the criteria laid down in the regulations. These are the projects identified in Annex 2 to the Directive (above para 12.119), namely: Projects for the restructuring of rural land holdings; Projects for the use of uncultivated land or semi natural areas for intensive agricultural purposes; Water management projects for agriculture; Initial afforestation and deforestation for the purpose of conversion to another type of land use; Intensive livestock rearing installations (eg those not caught by Annex 1 because the number of animals to be provided for does not exceed the thresholds set on the Directive); Intensive fish farming; and Reclamation of land from the sea.
12.126 Extensions and alternations to Sch 1 or 2 development projects are also deemed to be ‘EIA Development’ if they would have significant effects on the environment, as described above.171 In the case of Sch 2 projects the thresholds and criteria for triggering EIA are applied to a change or extensions (and not the whole development as changed or extended).
If the change or extension is itself a Sch 1 development then it will require EIA in most cases, subject to special rules laid down in the regulations.12.127 If the subject matter of the application for planning permission is a Sch 1 matter, or a Sch 2 matter likely to have significant effects on the environments, then the planning authority are prevented from granting planning permission unless they have first taken into account relevant environmental information supplied in accordance with the 2011 regulations.172 ‘Environmental information’ means, for this purpose the environmental statement supplied by the developer, the representations made by statutory consultees (eg English Nature) and ‘any representations duly made by any other person about the environmental effects of the development’.173 The planning authority, or the secretary of state, must provide a statement not only of the decision itself, but also of the principal reason s and considerations on which the decision is based,174 and this must be made available for public inspection at with the planning register and by advertisement in a newspaper circulating in the locality. This was a new requirement introduced by the 1997 amending Directive.