NON TECHNICAL SUMMARY
The consultation period for the SRDP Environmental Report will run for 6 weeks starting on 18 May 2006 and ending on 29 June 2006 to fit in with the consultation planned for the draft SRDP.
The Scottish Rural Development Programme ( SRDP) will be the main focus of rural development support in Scotland over the period 2007-2013. EU legislation requires that a Strategic Environmental Assessment ( SEA) is undertaken to establish the impact of the programme on the Scottish environment. This SEA was prepared by Royal Haskoning as part of the ex-ante evaluation of the SRDP. It draws on information provided by the Scottish Executive, Scottish Natural Heritage, Scottish Environmental Protection Agency and Historic Scotland.
The nature of the SRDP is such that it is not possible to predict the exact location, nature and impact of the actions. Therefore the SEA does not assess the exact environmental impacts of the programme, rather it provides an indication of that impact and suggests ways that negative impacts can be mitigated.
The SEA process has provided the start of the 'green thread' for the SRDP to ensure that each strand and initiative implemented within the SRDP is sustainable and delivers the desired environmental benefits. To do this, the SEA has identified: potential environmental impacts which could result from the implementation of specific actions or strategies detailed in themes 1 - 3; various mitigation strategies and measures which could be used to minimise or negate the impacts of these actions; and a number of future areas or activities for which further environmental assessments may be required before and during the implementation of the SRDP.
As there is considerable variation in the actions which could be implemented under any of the themes, the assessment was undertaken assuming that a worst case scenario was implemented. For example, it was assumed that the construction of hard infrastructure such as processing plants would be implemented instead the implementation of actions to promote ecotourism.
The environmental assessment indicated that none of the priority actions identified in any of the three themes in the SRDP developed in line with the three axes of the RDR were considered to have a significant negative impact on any of the objectives against which each action was assessed. Not surprisingly, none of the actions identified within Theme 2 were considered to have a negative impact on any of the SRDPSEA objectives and although negative impacts were identified for some of the actions on Themes 1 and 3, a number of positive environmental impacts were also identified for actions in these themes and in both cases the numbers of positive and negative impacts were similar despite the worse case scenario being assumed during the assessment process.
Five main actions were repeatedly identified as having potentially negative impacts:
- increased production of feedstock and energy crops for renewable energy production;
- construction of renewable energy plants within rural Scotland such as the construction of wind farms and hydropower schemes;
- increasing the number of processing facilities in rural Scotland by the construction of new buildings;
- the creation of recreational and tourism attractions which require land take; and
- changes in the infrastructure of communities in rural Scotland.
All five actions could result in a range of environmental impacts including the potential loss of land supporting biodiversity interests and priority and/or protected habitats and/or species, impacts on soil quality and quantity, impacts on the water environment and impacts on air quality and the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. However all options offer potential environmental benefits and mitigation measures to minimise or negate these impacts while still allowing the actions to proceed were identified.
Mitigation measures suggested include the development of a National Renewables Strategy for Scotland which would identify those areas where wind farms, hydropower schemes, biofuel plants (and associated biomass cropping sites), and marine and coastal renewable schemes should be permitted and those areas where, due to a number of reasons such as the sensitivity of the environment and/or the remoteness of the site from the National Grid, renewable plant development should not be permitted. With regard to biomass cropping, mitigation includes interspersing areas of monoculture biomass crops with new hedging, biodiversity crops or other habitats to break up the visual impact on the landscape and increase diversity as well as the introduction of crop rotation to prevent large scale harvesting and the associated impacts.
In many situations, the SRPD is not considered the most appropriate vehicle to minimise impacts and these would be better controlled through the other processes or under specific pieces of legislation. These include the control of development under the provisions of the planning regime and the protection and enhancement of the water environment under the provisions of the Water Environment (controlled Activities)(Scotland) Regulations 2005 regulated by SEPA.
An assessment of the land management objectives against the SRDPSEA objectives was undertaken and the findings of this assessment were similar to the assessment of the themes although the LMC objectives tended to be very specific and therefore the range of environmental benefits as well as environmental disbenefits was limited. Mitigation described for the negative impacts identified during the assessment of the themes is relevant for mitigation of the LMC objectives.
The SEA considered the impacts of the differing approaches to delivering the SRPD, including the establishment of the Regional Project Appraisal Committees ( RPACs) and the development of Regional Rural Development Guidance. Differing structures for the RPACs were considered based on existing structures such as the areas covered by Local Authorities, the Forestry Commission Scotland areas, SNH areas or river catchments. n addition differing geographical structures for the Guidance were considered.
The establishment of RPAC's based on river catchment boundaries within the Scotland River Basin area and the use of river catchments as the geographical areas for the guidance would provide a coherent and integrated system for the delivery of the SRDP. This would, in addition, offer the potential for the Regional Rural Development Guidance to feed into the development of the River Basin Management Plans, and this could address issues relating to monitoring and data storage which was also discussed. Data relating to grant applications and funding, and monitoring for compliance with the SRDP objectives and the SRDPSEA objectives could be collated on a GIS system compatible with the one for the Scotland River Basin Management Plan which is being developed by SEPA in accordance with the Water Framework Directive..
The SEA has recommended that a number of additional environmental assessments (may be required once the comments from the consultation for both the draft SRDP and the SRDPSEA Environmental Report have been received and also once the SRDP 2007 - 2013 has been implemented. Areas of likely future assessment include the full-scale review of the Agri-environment support system and the establishment of Regional Project Appraisal Committees ( RPACs) and the development (including the geographical scope) of Regional Rural Development Guidance.
In addition there will be a need for an assessment to be undertaken when considering each application for funding, or each block of applications for funding within a region to ensure that there is not imbalance of actions being funded within a region such that environmental impacts accumulate e.g. the conversion of large areas of land within an area to a monoculture of biomass crops or a mass expansion of hard infrastructure development in an area. The benefits of the implementation of a range of actions within an area will offer significant potential for environmental enhancement and the implementation of mitigation as part if the application will enhance these benefits.