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East Devon Local Development Framework - Sustainability Appraisal and Habitat Regulations

Sustainability appraisal is a process used to evaluate the potential impacts that development proposals and polices will have on the environment and on social and economic wellbeing. Through assessing potential impacts at an early stage, and on an ongoing basis through document production, we can plan for potential adverse impacts to be minimised and ensure positive benefits are realised.

Prior to actually undertaking a sustainability appraisal  we are required to produce a document called a scoping report. The scoping report sets out background information about relevant sustainability issues and also includes a framework of key sustainability objectives against which planning policies are to be assessed. We have produced a generic scoping report that will be used to inform appraisal of:

• the East Devon Core Strategy; and
• other documents that will make up the East Devon LDF.

 The Scoping Report can be downloaded here (4651KB - 05 February 2008 - PDF Help) and  the appendix to the Scoping Report can be downloaded here (241KB - 05 February 2008 - PDF Help)

In 2009 East Devon District Council appointed Land Use Consultant to lead on Sustainability Appraisal (incorporating Strategic Environmental Assessment) of the East Devon Core Strategy.

The consultants have produced a sustainability appraisal or interim sustainability appraisal of our LDF Issues and Options report.

 The Interim Sustainability Appraisal of the Issues and Options report can be downloaded here. (4308KB - 16 August 2010 - PDF Help)

The consultants have also produced a draft screening report under the Habitat Regulation.

 The Draft Screening Report under the Habitat Regulation can be downloaded here. (582KB - 16 August 2010 - PDF Help)

Sustainability Appraisal

In preparing our draft Core Strategy policies, the Council has commissioned an independent consultancy to undertake a Sustainability Appraisal (SA) of the  Preferred Approach report that we have produced.  In essence, this is a critique of the draft document, looking at how 20 different sustainability objectives, covering social, economic and environmental issues, would be affected by the document as a whole, and specifically by each of the proposed policies. Many of the SA findings are that the Preferred Approach draft policies are either positive or neutral, but where the assessment of a draft policy against a sustainability objective is negative, this indicates that the consultants advise that the Council should think about changing the policy in some way.  In Chapter 5 of the full SA advice and recommendations to the Council are set out about how to amend the proposals, to mitigate or to avoid the disbenefits identified.  The detailed assessment of each of the policies against each objective is set out in Appendix 3 of the full SA report.   A shorter, non-technical summary of the SA findings has also been produced.   

We have published both the full SA report and its non-technical summary here so that anyone can see the process of checks that the Council is going through to test and refine the document that will become the Core Strategy.  The assessments and recommendations set out in the SA will be considered carefully by the Council.  Any changes made to the draft policies in the light of this advice (or as a result of any other part of the consultation process now in train) will be clearly reported, so that the evolution of the document can be seen.  

We hope that the SA and its summary will be useful to you, by informing any comments you have on the Preferred Approach report.

 Preferred Approach Sustainability Appraisal Report 06/09/2010 (4537KB - 27 October 2010 - PDF Help)

 Sustainability Report Non Technical Summary (89KB - 27 October 2010 - PDF Help)

Page last updated on 25 May 2012