Strategic Issues - Scotland

摘要

The EU has a new directive on Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), Directive 2014/52/EU, and the Scottish Government is consulting on its transposition. For now, at least, and on the face of it, it is business as usual for transposition. Although there is general provision for EIA, usually within the planning system (SSI 2011 /139) there are also several special EIA regimes in operation in Scotland - the picture is quite complex and the document reflects that complexity. It also shows signs of having been written in a hurry - it is probably inevitable that as Brexit weighs heavily on the minds and work programmes of all elements of government, other tasks will be correspondingly squeezed.The main part of the document, however, is easy to follow, with each amended Article set out, then a brief description of the change and then how it will be implemented. The draft amending regulations are in separate documents, so following through to the detail of the actual proposal does need those as well. The draft Regulations currently available are the 'main' regulations (Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) (Scotland) Regulations 2017) and separate provision for electricity works; these and other documents are available from the consultation pages.This consultation proposes changes to eight separate regimes, whilst Ports and Harbours, Flooding and Controlled Activities will follow separately. Most of them have separate regulations, which will have to be amended. One does wonder if a main set with special regimes included in specific parts might be cleaner and easier to use.