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AONB Management Plan Review | ||||
The Arnside and Silverdale AONB Partnership published the first AONB Management Plan in April 2004. This statutory document is required to be reviewed on a five yearly basis. That means that in order to produce either a reviewed and updated plan - or a completely new plan by April 2009, we have to start the review this year. In fact several major steps have already been taken and considerable progress has been made. Since the first Management Plan was written, additional requirements have been placed on all those who write development plans of any kind. Firstly all Plans must undergo a Stategic Environmental Assessment. This is designed to prevent environmental damage occuring through the effects of a management or development plan. It is likely that the AONB Management Plan will not cause damage, as its raison d'etre is to deliver the conservation and enhancement of the AONB. Secondly, the Plan must undergo an Appropriate Assessment, this is focused on the effects of the Plan as it may affect Natura 2000 sites in and around the AONB. Again it should be largely benign in effect, but the AA process will provide a useful health check for the policies contained in the Mangement Plan. What will the SEA cover 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:
What stages of the Assessment have already happened The SEA Process was launched at the AONB Executive meeting in July 2007 - and has so far produced a draft scoping report, which has been subject to formal consultation. The Scoping Report was produced by an Environmental Consultant, as the Assessment Process should be carried out externally to the body that is responsible for the Plan subject to the SEA! Stage B was completed over the summer, where we have seen the formal adoption of the scoping report and the assessment of Management Plan Objectives against the agreed list of SEA Objectives. The Assessment seeks to ensure there are minimal detrimental environment effects associated with the Management Plan. The SEA Process has been used to highlight any conflicts and help re-draft a number of Objectives so as to prevent any foeseeable negative impacts, where the interpretation of an individual Objective may possibly have been such as to allow negative impacts to arise. The Scoping Report has fed into the Management Plan review process, which has essentially been running in parallel with the SEA Process. The completion of the SEA - stage C - has been the production of the Environmental Report This document provides an audit report of how the Management Plan has been affected or modified by the SEA. Stage D of the SEA process The six week Public and Partner formal consultation period was undertaken between October 24th to December 5th 2008. The feedback from the consultation process has been used to amend the Management Plan and review the detail of the Environmental Report. Only a few comments were made on the draft environmental report and it is likely that any amendment will be minor in nature. The changes to the Management Plan are more significant and will result in a minor review of the SEA and AA in order to take account of any substantive changes, which will require re-assessment. A final Environmental Report will then be issued. This may take the form of an addendum to the existing report if there are only a few changes, or may result in the publication of a new Environmental Report in full. Once all these changes and amendments have been incorporated into the principal documents then Stage D of the SEA will have been completed. What will happen next The next major step in the process is the completion of a six week Public and Partner formal consultation period on the Action Plan - downloadable from the Management Plan page of this website. This period runs from February 6th to March 20th 2009. Following the consultation exercise any feedback will be assessed and any appropriate amendments to the Action Plan will be completed. The Action Plan will then itself be subject to an Appropriate Assessment process, which may trigger further amendment of the Plan. The publication of the AA report on the Action Plan will be the final Stage D work carried out on the AONB Management Plan. the SEA Scoping Report You can download a copy of the SEA scoping report here, this document has been subject to official consultation with Natural England, English Heritage and the Environment Agency. It was also the subject of the AONB Annual Conference in October last year, where the "Points of View" session formed part of the public consultation on the content of the SEA.
Click the link here to view the scoping report -
SEA Scoping Report The Draft Environmental Report You can also download a copy of the Draft SEA Environmental Report here. This
document will now be subject to some revision following the official consultation with Natural England, English Heritage
and the Environment Agency and feedback from the full Public consultation. Along with the draft
Management Plan final editions of the documents will beconme available over the coming weeks as work progresses.
Click the link here for the Envionmental Report -
Click the link here for the Envionmental Report Appendix -
Click the link here for the Appropriate Assessment Baseline Report -
Click the link here for the Appropriate Assessment Report -
If you wish to comment on these document please return your comments via email to
info@arnsidesilverdaleaonb.org.uk before the 20th March 2009. Your consultation comments will be used to inform the
further development of any revisions Appropriate Assessment Report.
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© Arnside/Silverdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
Telephone: 01524 761034 e-mail: info@arnsidesilverdaleaonb.org.uk
10th February 2009
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