Local Development Frameworks place a greater emphasis on the
environment and sustainable development. As a result, most LDF
documents will be subject to a Sustainability Appraisal
(incorporating EU legislation for Strategic Environmental
Assessment).
The main purpose of Sustainability Appraisal is to assess to
what extent policies and proposals contribute towards meeting
social, economic and environmental objectives and sustainable
development. The assessment should consider what the likely impact
would be and where relevant, suggest alternative or mitigating
proposals.
The Sustainability Appraisal process
Some LDF documents are exempt from the Sustainability Appraisal
process, (eg. Statement of Community Involvement) but each of the
main documents produced will be accompanied throughout by
sustainability appraisal analysis. There are five broad stages of
the assessment process:
The five stages are:
- Stage A - Setting the context and objectives,
establishing the baseline and deciding on the scope (the scoping
report).
- Stage B - Developing and refining options and
assessing effects.
- Stage C - Preparing the Sustainability
Appraisal report.
- Stage D - Consultation on the preferred
options plan and the Sustainability Appraisal Report.
- Stage E - Monitoring significant effects of
implementing the plan.
You can view the published Sustainability Appraisal
reports relevant to each LDF document by looking at
the specific webpages created for them:
Scoping reports
The Sustainability Appraisal Scoping Report represents the first
part of LDF document production. This is where the initial
gathering and assessment of baseline data and other relevant plans
and strategies takes place in order to set the context and identify
local issues.
You can view the
baseline data (new window PDF 824KB) and
other local strategies and plans considered
(new window PDF 379KB) for the Scoping
Reports.