21st December 2006, 03:07 PM
Posted by Unit of 1:
How the ES is publicised is a client decision, not in the power of an EIA consultant. The regulations only require the ES to be made available through the planning authority and in local libraries, and it is the planning authority that is legally responsible for consulting the public, not the developer. However, most clients are willing to go beyond the legal requirements in this respect.
However, I do advise it, although you have to be careful - a full Environmental Statement can be a very weighty document, and may be impracticable to place on the web. An alternative is to place the Non-Technical summary on the web, together with instructions on how to find copies of the full thing if you want to.
There is an obligation on any client to provide copies of the full ES on request, but they can charge the cost of production. Typically (genuine costs) this might be around £200-£400. However, there is an increasing move towards publishing the ES in PDF form, which should make it a lot cheaper (copy and distribute a DVD instead of hundreds of pages of text and colour illustrations). I plan to do that for the jobs I am currently working on.
The last environmental report I produced was made available on the client's website (a County Council) immediately. It was not an ES, because the project has not yet reached that stage. I believe the the two I am currently working on (for the Highways Agency) will also end up on the web.
Many projects also go to Public Consultation, at a much earlier stage. On one recent job I was involved in preparing two separate rounds of Public Consultation, a year apart. Each one involved a series of exhibitions at several venues over a period of a week, with a large team of senior specialists (including me) in attendance. The exhibitions involved display boards, an aerial flyover, virtual reality simulations and a large physical model.
I am currently preparing for another such consultation, for a different project, early next year.
1man1desk
to let, fully furnished
Quote:quote:1desk Do you put your EIAs on the web?Bear in mind that EIA is a process that may take 1-3 years; the final report on its results (after several interim stages) is called the Environmental Statement, or ES.
How the ES is publicised is a client decision, not in the power of an EIA consultant. The regulations only require the ES to be made available through the planning authority and in local libraries, and it is the planning authority that is legally responsible for consulting the public, not the developer. However, most clients are willing to go beyond the legal requirements in this respect.
However, I do advise it, although you have to be careful - a full Environmental Statement can be a very weighty document, and may be impracticable to place on the web. An alternative is to place the Non-Technical summary on the web, together with instructions on how to find copies of the full thing if you want to.
There is an obligation on any client to provide copies of the full ES on request, but they can charge the cost of production. Typically (genuine costs) this might be around £200-£400. However, there is an increasing move towards publishing the ES in PDF form, which should make it a lot cheaper (copy and distribute a DVD instead of hundreds of pages of text and colour illustrations). I plan to do that for the jobs I am currently working on.
The last environmental report I produced was made available on the client's website (a County Council) immediately. It was not an ES, because the project has not yet reached that stage. I believe the the two I am currently working on (for the Highways Agency) will also end up on the web.
Many projects also go to Public Consultation, at a much earlier stage. On one recent job I was involved in preparing two separate rounds of Public Consultation, a year apart. Each one involved a series of exhibitions at several venues over a period of a week, with a large team of senior specialists (including me) in attendance. The exhibitions involved display boards, an aerial flyover, virtual reality simulations and a large physical model.
I am currently preparing for another such consultation, for a different project, early next year.
1man1desk
to let, fully furnished