SEA IN THE CONTEXT OF LANDTUSE PLANNING

ensuring that environmental assessment is carried out of certain plans and programmes whichare likely to have significant effects on the environment. Relevant documents in promotingthis objective is the government’s Sustainable Development Strategy (ODPM 2005a). TheStrategy builds on the previous 1999 document, and contains an integrated vision or purpose,five principles, four agreed priorities and a new set of indicators for implementing andensuring sustainability. It covers England and all non-developed issues, includinginternational relations. Furthermore, a UK framework for sustainable development to 2020,‘One future – different paths’ (HMSO 2005) has also been agreed by the UK Governmentand the administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. In the government’ssustainability strategy (HMSO 2005:116), planning is identified as a key to achievingsustainable development through every step of the planning process. The revision of theplanning processes is seen as a step in the move towards integration of sustainability inplanning (HMSO 2005:107, 110). Moreover, PPS 1 ‘Delivering Sustainable Development’ sets outvision and the key policies that will underpin sustainable development.6.8 Discussion - the introduction of SEA in relation to the national planningsystemIn the overview of the introduction of SEA into the UK land use planning system in Jones etal (2005) it is pin-pointed that the implementation of the SEA directive is taking place “… in acomplex and dynamic situation, involving four distinct but related dimensions”. These are:• the SEA directive itself• the reform of the land use planning system• the existence of devolved administration with responsibility for planning and theenvironment• the legacy of knowledge of and experience of the environmental and sustainabilityappraisal of development plansThe relationship between those factors presents a basis for an analysis of the introduction ofSEA that does not merely present a direct transposition of the European directive, but has tobe studied in the implementation context, both of the municipality, as well as the national,legal, and institutional framework. On the basis of this review of the introduction of SEA tothe English planning system carried out as a part of this research, the four issues identifiedabove, fit the main findings, and can be expected to be fundamental to the introduction andthe application of SEA. On the first issue, the introduction of the SEA directive has beenimplemented explicitly into the UK policy environment by the introduction of separate SEAregulations. It is also explicitly stated that it is not the intention of taking the requirements ofthe directive further, but the importance of fulfilling its requirements is stressed in variouspolicy documents. In the guidelines issued by ODPM in 2005, the different stages, stipulatedby the EC directive are followed, and applied to the UK planning system.The reform of the land use planning system is without a doubt of major influence forthe introduction of the directive, both in terms of the new context to which SEA must beintroduced, i.e. the new planning processes and documentation, as well as the climate ofchange that reigns at the different authority levels. This view of the challenges of adopting theSEA requirements to the evolving planning practice (a new planning system consisting ofregional spatial strategies and local development documents) is shared by Fischer (2005), whopoints out that the planning officers need to deal with two new parallel challenges; thechanges in the planning system and the introduction of new formalised SEA requirements92