New regulations require planning authorities to replace their Local Plans with Local Development Frameworks (LDF). St Albans District's three Development Plan Documents form part of its LDF and must be subject to both Sustainability Appraisal and Strategic Environmental Assessment under the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act (2004) and the Environmental Assessment of Plans and Programmes Regulations (2004) which implement European Directive 2001/42/EC, known as the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) Directive.

The Scoping Report comprises the first stage of the SEA/SA process of the emerging DPDs. This SEA/SA is being carried out as part of a joint project commissioned by the four Hertfordshire local authorities situated in the south west of the county - Dacorum Borough Council, St Albans City and District Council, Three Rivers District Council, and Watford Borough Council. The Centre for Sustainability (C4S) at TRL Ltd and their project partners Halcrow Group Ltd have been appointed to undertake this project.

The draft Scoping Report provides an overview of the SEA/SA tasks undertaken to date, presents the baseline information, provides a contextual overview of the SEA/SA Appraisal Framework, relating to the sustainability objectives, criteria and indicators and outlines the proposed methodology for the remaining stages of the SEA/SA. The Scoping Report will form part of the overarching SA/ Environmental Report which itself provides the final audit trail of decisions taken in the development of the preferred options and sets out the anticipated environmental impacts of the DPDs.

SE-SEA Draft Scoping Report - 1

SE-SEA Draft Scoping Report - 2

SE-SEA Draft Scoping Report - Appendix

We now invite your views and opinions on the draft Scoping Report. You may find the following questions helpful in structuring your response. However, please do not feel obliged to answer them all.

• Q1: Do you think the LDF might impact on Natura 2000 sites? If so, on which sites and what might be the likely impacts?
• Q2: Are there any other policies, plans or programmes (PPPs) that contain environmental protection objectives or identify issues that are not covered by this list of PPPs in the Appendix?
• Q3: Are there any other issues or information related to the topics covered in section 2.3 that are relevant to the St Albans District DPDs and should be included?
• Q4: Are there any other problems, opportunities or issues that are relevant to our DPDs and have not been covered?
• Q5: Are there any further interrelationships between topics that have not been identified?
• Q6: Where do you see the main issues in the area and which topics to you want see addressed with priority within the SA/SEA?
• Q7: Do the SA/SEA objectives provide a reasonable framework through which the likely significant environmental effects of the DPDs can be assessed?
• Q8: Are their any other indicators which are relevant to the DPDs?
• Q9: Are there any other potential conflicts between the proposed SA/SEA objectives and the core strategy objectives that have not been identified in the compatibility assessment?
• Q10: How could potential conflicts be addressed?
• Q11: How would your organisation like to be involved in the rest of this SA/SEA process?
• Q12: Do you believe that the significant impacts of the DPDs can be identified using this approach?
• Q13: Are there other/additional methodologies that could be used to identify the significant impacts of the DPDs?

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