IEMA Welcomes Arrival of EIA Directive Changes in UK Law

2014 amendments come into force today across UK. New EIA guidance launched today to support profession’s understanding

IEMA’s Policy experts say they welcome the arrival of the day where vital amendments to the EIA Directive come into force.

Today, changes to the 2014 EU Environmental Impact Assessment Directive have been fully transposed into UK law in the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations. All EU member states must meet today’s deadline to enshrine the revisions into their own domestic legislation.

“Today is a significant point for EIA professionals. It marks the culmination of a great deal of reflection and review by practitioners, where they have needed to make some noise to achieve the right outcome, particularly around the definition of “competent experts,” said Josh Fothergill, Policy Lead at IEMA. “IEMA members will be pleased to see the amendments finally become law, so policy and practice can effectively realign”.

IEMA has been heavily involved throughout the consultation of the EIA Directive review. It has fed member views into all stages of the process, and was positively referred to by the European Commission in its official proposals for the revising to Directive in October 2012 – the only professional body to be mentioned. IEMA has spent the past three years priming its practitioners to handle the changes ready for today.

To support members’ understanding of key EIA areas, IEMA has today published two free guidance documents:

•The Environmental Impact Assessment Guide to Assessing Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Evaluating their Significance (created in partnership with Arup); and

•Health in Environmental Impact Assessment: A Primer for a Proportionate Approach (written in collaboration with Ben Cave Associates and Faculty of Public Health).