Strategic Environmental Assessment

Since the first Management Plan was written in 2004, additional requirements have been placed on all those who write development plans of any kind by European Directives on Strategic Environmental Assessment(SEA). Stategic Environmental Assessments are designed to prevent environmental damage occuring through the effects of a management or development plan being implemented. Even though the AONB Management Plan would be benign or beneficial, given its raison d'etre is to deliver the conservation and enhancement of the AONB, it has been subject to a full SEA during the recent review process.

Additionally, the Management Plan has undergone an Appropriate Assessment, focused on the effects of the Plan on the Natura 2000 sites in and around the AONB. Again the Plan is largely benign in effect, but the AA process provided a useful health check for the policies contained in the Management Plan and helped clarify wording of a number of policy Responses, so as to reduce the likelihood of mis-interpretation.

What the SEA covered

The five detailed stages in the SEA process (A to E) that each AONB Partnership or Conservation Board will need to undertake are summarised below:

- Stage A Context, Baseline and Scope
Key Issues, Environmental Baseline, Predicting Trends, Relevant Plans and Policies, Objectives,
Consideration of AONB Options, Scoping Report, Consultation

- Stage B Assessment
Developing and refining the Environmental Assessment and assessing effects

- Stage C Preparation of Environmental Report (ER)
The ER accompanies the draft management plan during public consultation and identifies shortcomings in information /suggests new research required.

- Stage D Consultation and Review
Public and Official Consultation on the Environmental Report and feedback

- Stage E Monitoring Takes into account effects of the ER on the implementation of the AONB Management Plan

SEA for this AONB

The SEA Process was launched at the AONB Executive meeting in July 2007

Stage A of the SEA involved the production of a draft scoping report, produced by an Environmental Consultant, Sue Hunter. The draft scoping report was subject to formal consultation and discussion at the 2007 AONB Conference. The assessment process has to be carried out externally to the organisation responsible for the Plan that is subject to the SEA, so as to ensure that a rigorous and unbiased process has been followed.

Stage B was completed over the summer 2008, where when the formal adoption of the scoping report and the assessment of Management Plan Objectives against the agreed list of SEA Objectives took place. The assessment carried out by the consultant, tried to ensure there were no detrimental environment effects associated with the Management Plan from the outset.

The SEA Process highlighted conflicts and helped re-draft a number of Objectives, so as to prevent any foreseeable negative impacts, where the interpretation of an individual Objective may have introduced uncertainty of outcome.

The Scoping Report fed into the Management Plan review process, which ran in parallel with the SEA Process. Completion of SEA - stage C - with the presentation of a draft Environmental Report to the AONB Executive Committe in October 2008 led onto Stage D of the SEA process with a six week Public and Partner formal consultation (undertaken between October 24th to December 5th 2008).

Feedback from the consultation process was used to amend the Management Plan and review the detail of the Environmental Report. Following on from any changes made, a final Environmental Report was issued in June 2009, which can be downloaded from the link below.

Downloads of the various SEA Reports

As well as the full Environmental Report, you can also view the SEA scoping report, SEA assessment documents and the Appropriate Assessment documents, which set the context and extent of the Environmental Report. 

Click the link for the Environmental Report   -
Main report produced by the SEA
(592KB pdf file).

Click the link for the Appendix C to the Envionmental Report  -
SEA Assessment documents and Matrix
(329KB pdf file).

Click the link for the Appendix E to the Envionmental Report  -
SEA Assessment documents and Matrix (post consultation)
(161KB pdf file).

Click the link for the SEA Baseline Report  -
(Preliminary stage report for the Strategic Environmental Assessment)
(2.98MB pdf file).

Click the link for the Appropriate Assessment Matrix  -
(Supplementary document to the Environmental Report)
(481KB pdf file).

Click the link for the Appropriate Assessment Baseline Report  -
(Supplementary document to the Environmental Report)
(336KB pdf file).