The Regulations transpose EU Directive 2011/92/EU (EIA Directive) for use in Wales, and relate to certain development given planning permission through the town and country planning system.
This means that these Regulations enforce the assessment of the environmental impact of development before planning permission is granted, integrating the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) procedures into the Welsh planning system, and supplement the usual planning process to provide a more systematic method of assessing the environmental implications of developments likely to have significant environmental effects.
The Environmental Impact Assessment Directive aims to ensure the authority granting the development consent for a particular project makes its decision in full knowledge of any likely significant effects on the environment. This helps to ensure the importance of the predicted effects, and the scope for avoiding or reducing any adverse effects, are properly understood before a decision is made. New provisions take into account the requirements of the amended Directive, which seek to define, clarify and expand upon aspects of the Assessment process, on the basis of minimal additional regulatory burden, whilst ensuring protecting of the environment.
The main aim of the EIA Directive is to ensure that the authority granting consent (the competent authority) for a particular project makes its decision in full knowledge of any likely significant effects on the environment. The Directive therefore sets out a procedure that must be followed for certain types of project before they can be given development consent.
This procedure is a means of drawing together, in a systematic way, an assessment of a project’s likely significant environmental effects. This helps to ensure that the importance of the predicted effects, and the scope for reducing any adverse effects, are properly understood by the public and the competent authority before it makes its decision.
