Sustainability Appraisal

The Council is required to carry out a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA)/ Sustainability Appraisal (SA) in order to ensure that plans and proposals produced as part of the Local Development Framework can be tested at an early stage in terms of their environmental, economic and social impact.


The Sustainability Appraisal for the Changes to the Core Strategy Proposed Submission (October 2010) can be viewed below:

Previous Sustainability Appraisals


The Sustainability Appraisal for the Proposed Submission Core Strategy June 2010 can be viewed below:

The Scoping Report and the Core Strategy Issues and Options Working Note can be viewed below.

Scoping Reports for the Sustainable Communities and Amenity and Children's playspace Supplementary Planning Documents Sustainability Appraisals are also available below.

The Sustainability Appraisals for the Sustainability Communities SPD, the Open Space, Amenity and Children's Playspace SPD and the Core Strategy: Supplemental Issues and Options are available below.

Supplemental Issues and Options - Sustainability Appraisal (Appendix)  DOWNLOAD

Appropriate Assessment

Under the Habitats Directive, Local Authorities are required to produce an Appropriate Assessment (AA) to determine any potential impacts of an individual development or strategic level plan on Natura 2000 sites. Natura 2000 Sites (which includes Special Protected Areas (SPA) and Special Areas of Conservation (SAC)) comprise an ecological network of Europe’s finest wildlife areas. These areas afford high levels of protection under the European Habitats Directive.

Appropriate Assessment will determine whether the land use plans coming forward in the emerging Three Rivers Local Development Framework will have (alone or in combination) a significant impact on nearby Natura 2000 Sites.

To date, Appropriate Assessment screening has been carried out for the Core Strategy, and the report is available to download below.