Strategic Environmental Assessment
Strategic Environmental Assessment is a new requirement which extends the assessment of environmental impacts from individual projects to the wider perspective of public strategies, plans and programmes. There was not a legal requirement to undertake a SEA of the National Transport Strategy (NTS) on the following grounds:
- The Environmental Assessment of Plans and Programmes (Scotland) Regulations 2004 do not apply as the NTS is not required by legislative, regulatory or administrative provisions; and
- The first preparatory act for the NTS was undertaken prior to the Environmental Assessment (Scotland) Act 2005 being enacted.
However, the SEA process was considered to be of value to the development of the NTS and was therefore applied to the NTS on a voluntary basis.
The SEA Scoping Report was sent to the Consultation Authorities (Historic Scotland, Scottish Environmental Protection Agency and Scottish Natural Heritage) in December 2005 with their comments being taken into account in the drafting of the Environmental Report.
The SEA Environmental Report was published for consultation on 22 May 2006 which also concluded on 13 July 2006. 12 responses were received to the consultation.
The SEA Post-Adoption Statement has now been published.
Ethnicity Assessment
In accordance with the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 a Stage 1 Race Impact Assessment (screening) has been applied to the NTS consultation paper. A workshop session to discuss equality issues in the context of the NTS also took place in November 2005.
The workshop was attended by representatives from the Disability Rights Commission, Equal Opportunities Commission, Equality Network and Age Concern. The Mobility and Access Committee Scotland, Commission for Racial Equality and the Scottish Inter Faith Council were also invited to attend. Points raised at this workshop have informed the development of the NTS consultation paper.