| EIA-SCREEN: A Framework for Responsible Environmental Assessment in East Hampshire |

📘 Disclaimer: This document is a conceptual proposal prepared for consideration by East Hampshire District Council (EHDC). It does not represent current policy but outlines an optional framework that EHDC could choose to adopt, pilot, or develop further. It has been designed to be implementable in its current form or used as a foundation for future formal guidance or policy inclusion.

There are no legal, financial, or procedural barriers preventing East Hampshire District Council (EHDC) from implementing a stronger Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) screening policy — none. The full cost of EIA preparation falls entirely on developers, not the council. National policy (NPPF) not only allows but encourages local authorities to tailor EIA thresholds and requirements to reflect their area’s specific environmental and infrastructure pressures. EHDC holds full legal discretion to do so. The only missing ingredient is political will: a genuine, resident-focused leadership that chooses to act. Strengthening EIA screening is a no-brainer — it costs EHDC nothing and delivers enormous public benefit. Any refusal to pursue this reform cannot be justified on planning grounds; it can only be seen as an abdication of responsibility.

📚 Background and Purpose

An Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is a legal process that ensures proposed developments are properly assessed for potential environmental harm before planning permission is granted.

Under the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2017, developers must submit an EIA if their proposal:

• Is a Schedule 1 project (which always requires a full EIA), or
• Is a Schedule 2 project (which requires an EIA if it’s likely to cause significant effects)

However, for Schedule 2 projects, it is the council’s legal responsibility — in this case, EHDC — to carry out a screening decision to determine whether a full EIA is required.

At present, this screening process:

• Lacks consistency,
• Is vulnerable to underestimating impact, and
• Often fails to consider cumulative development pressure or sensitive local contexts.

This framework is designed to strengthen how EHDC applies EIA screening, improve public transparency, and ensure that environmental protection is proactive, locally relevant, and legally robust.

📏 Defining Cumulative Development for Screening

All EIA screening decisions must assess cumulative development activity within the named settlement, and within any related functional service area — regardless of whether that area is larger, smaller, or overlapping with the settlement boundary.

Functional service areas may include:

• Shared GP catchments
• School admissions zones
• Utility networks (e.g. drainage or wastewater)
• Any other relevant infrastructure zones identified by consultees

Screening must use a rolling five-year window, and include:

• All approved major developments (whether built or not),
• All pending or validated applications,
• And any phased or related applications on adjacent or linked land.

🔢 Note: Population growth thresholds are still calculated by named settlement using official Census or mid-year estimates.

📘 Public Explanation – Why We Use This Approach

Local services rarely follow clean village or town boundaries. One GP might serve three villages. A school catchment might cover only part of a town.

If EHDC only looks at what’s happening inside a single boundary, it could miss serious pressure on those shared services — or fail to flag cumulative environmental risk.

That’s why this framework uses a more realistic approach: it looks at both the named settlement and the real-world infrastructure areas people depend on — even if those areas are bigger, smaller, or cross between places.

✅ It doesn’t overcomplicate things.
✅ It doesn’t block development.
✅ It just makes sure EHDC doesn’t miss what really matters — and applies the law fairly based on how services actually function.

⚖️ A. Local Plan Allocation and Delivery Rate Triggers

A full EIA must be required if any single application, or the combined effect of applications over five years, in a named settlement:

• ✅ Meets or exceeds the total housing allocation for that settlement (from the adopted Local Plan); or
• ⏱️ Delivers 10 years’ worth of Local Plan housing in fewer than 10 years; or
• 📈 Exceeds double the expected annual delivery rate, based on Local Plan targets divided by the total plan period.

These thresholds apply regardless of whether the growth comes from one scheme or many.

📘 Public Note – Why This Matters

Let’s say Medstead is supposed to grow by 400 homes between 2020 and 2040 — that’s 20 homes a year.
But if 200 homes are approved by 2026, we’re already at 10 years’ worth of growth in just 6 years.
That puts pressure on roads, GPs, schools, drainage — often before upgrades are in place.

This policy doesn’t block that growth — it just says, “Let’s stop and assess the full impact before approving more.”

🧮 B. Proportionate Screening Thresholds by Settlement Size

Even before Local Plan allocations are reached, EHDC will apply proportionate EIA screening thresholds based on settlement population.

| To further support fair and proportionate screening, EHDC will apply scale-sensitive “starting points” for triggering EIA in different types of settlements — especially where cumulative activity does not yet meet allocation-based thresholds, but may still pose serious environmental risk. |

These guidelines reflect the principle that what is “major” depends on local scale — and that even modest proposals can pose serious impact in small or sensitive locations.

📘 Population growth should be measured over a rolling 10-year period, comparing historic figures (Census or ONS) to current or post-development totals.

|Growth percentages should be calculated using a rolling 10-year baseline, comparing Census or official mid-year population estimates against post-development projections. This ensures consistency with Local Plan methodologies and national planning practice.|

🔧 C. Operational Safeguards and Screening Integrity

To ensure decisions are fair, evidence-based, and transparent, EHDC will apply the following safeguards during EIA screening:

1. 📇 Accountability and Traceability

• Every EIA screening opinion must include the officer’s name or ID, department, and planning reference number.
• A contact email must be provided so the public can submit questions or complaints.

2. 📊 Numerical Evidence from Consultees

• Consultees (e.g. NHS, Natural England, Southern Water) must provide quantitative data, such as:
  • Patient capacity
  • Sewer load
  • School places
• Generic “no objection” responses without data will be considered insufficient.

3. 🗣️ Public Transparency and Consultation

• Where EHDC determines that EIA is not required for a large, cumulative, or sensitive project, it must:
  • Publish a draft opinion
  • Hold a 14-day public consultation
• Public feedback must be:
  • Categorised as:
    • ❌ Unsubstantiated – no clear evidence
    • ⚠️ Accepted risk – noted, not escalated
    • ✅ Actioned – accepted and addressed
  • Summarised and published in the final screening opinion

✅ Final Summary

This updated screening policy:

• Protects local services by accounting for real cumulative growth
• Uses Local Plan logic to trigger proper scrutiny
• Ensures that both small villages and fast-growing towns get the oversight they need
• Brings accountability and transparency into every EIA decision

It’s not about blocking development. It’s about getting it right — legally, environmentally, and fairly.

🔍 Final Summary

This EIA Screening Framework ensures that:

• 📚 EHDC follows its Local Plan without overlooking environmental risk,
• 🚨 Growth that is too fast or too concentrated is caught early,
• 🏘️ Settlements of all sizes are treated fairly and proportionately,
• 🔍 And service-based impacts — like GP or school overload — are not missed just because they cross an invisible line on a map.

This is about using real-world logic, not bureaucratic boundaries, to ensure sustainable, transparent, and responsible planning in East Hampshire.

✍️ Component Delivery Framework – A structured summary for EHDC adoption and rollout

📘 Disclaimer: This document is a conceptual proposal prepared for consideration by East Hampshire District Council (EHDC). It does not represent current policy but outlines an optional framework that EHDC could choose to adopt, pilot, or develop further. It has been designed to be implementable in its current form or used as a foundation for future formal guidance or policy inclusion.

📚 Background and Rationale

This policy proposal is informed by lived experience of the planning process in East Hampshire — specifically, how infrastructure capacity is assessed and communicated in relation to new development.

In reviewing multiple planning applications for major residential development within the same settlement, it became apparent that the infrastructure consultee feedback — particularly from NHS bodies regarding GP services — was identical or nearly identical across different applications, even when submitted around the same time. These responses lacked numerical data and made no reference to cumulative population growth or actual capacity conditions in the affected area.

This raises a serious procedural concern: it suggests that there is no requirement within EHDC’s planning process for infrastructure consultees to provide quantified, accountable, or cumulative-aware responses.

The result allows one to imply that if one consultee is permitted to respond without numerical or contextual accountability, a wider cluster of process defects likely exists across all types of infrastructure consultees.

• No requirement for numerical capacity data (e.g. patient list sizes, safe service thresholds, population yield from developments)
• No assigned ownership of the accuracy or adequacy of the infrastructure assessment
• No accountability if consultee responses are vague, generic, or reused across unrelated applications
• No public explanation of whether developer contributions (e.g. to NHS infrastructure) will result in any measurable local benefit

As a result, mitigation measures — where proposed — are not accompanied by any assurance of what they will deliver. For instance, there is rarely any information provided about:

• Whether the funding will benefit the local settlement where development is proposed
• What form the mitigation will take (e.g. physical expansion, staff capacity, mobile clinics, digital triage, etc.)
• What increase in service capacity the funding is designed to support
• How the delivery of this infrastructure aligns with the timing of housing occupation

This creates a situation where development can be approved on the assumption that impacts are mitigated, but there is no mechanism to verify that capacity will actually increase, or that service improvements will be delivered in the right place, at the right time, and in proportion to the demand being created.

Additionally, in the consultee responses reviewed, there was no indication that the NHS body was aware that the applications in question were located outside the Local Plan’s planned development boundaries. This is a crucial distinction, as out-of-plan proposals are typically not accompanied by pre-assessed infrastructure support, and their approval can significantly accelerate unplanned demand in areas where capacity has not been strategically accounted for.

Equally concerning is the complete absence of any reference to the actual size or growth of the settlement affected by the proposal. In the cases reviewed, no consultee response referred to the population size of the settlement, the number of households already approved since the last Census, or the cumulative increase in population that had already occurred or was underway.

Furthermore, there is no indication that infrastructure consultees are required to provide any evidence of whether capacity improvements have been made in proportion to past population growth. For example, if a settlement experienced significant growth between the 2011 and 2021 Censuses, a credible infrastructure response should include a reference to whether GP capacity, school places, or drainage systems have been expanded to meet that increased demand. Without such a requirement, consultees can issue standardised “no objection” responses without acknowledging existing strain — and without offering any evidence that investment has kept pace with population growth. This undermines the credibility of the planning process and makes it impossible for EHDC or the public to assess whether essential services are expanding in line with housing delivery.

This suggests one of two things:

• Either consultees are not being provided with this information by EHDC at the point of consultation, or
• They are not required to demonstrate that their assessment takes these contextual figures into account

In either case, it represents a serious flaw in the process. Without this local context — including whether a site is plan-compliant, and what cumulative growth has already occurred — infrastructure consultees cannot meaningfully assess capacity or risk, and their feedback becomes functionally detached from the real-world conditions on the ground.

This absence of procedural safeguards — input requirements, output expectations, and defined responsibility — allows infrastructure constraints to be systematically overlooked or papered over. It undermines public confidence, prevents transparent planning, and disconnects development from the real-world services needed to support it.

This policy seeks to close that gap by introducing mandatory numerical assessment requirements, tied to cumulative local growth, and backed by clear expectations for what mitigation must deliver, where, and when.

To further address this, EHDC should design its consultee process so that when multiple applications are active in the same settlement, each consultee is informed of any pending or validated applications already on record, and must account for these in their response. A first-come, first-assessed principle should apply — meaning that applications submitted earlier are assumed to be approved, and later consultee responses must assess the impact as if those schemes are already part of the local infrastructure load.

This requirement will apply equally to all statutory and non-statutory infrastructure consultees. It is essential that each response reflects a realistic and evolving picture of service pressure, based not only on a single proposal, but on the collective development pipeline within that locality.

🔧 Policy Mechanism

As part of the planning application process, any major residential development (10 or more dwellings), or any development in a settlement identified as exceeding its fair share of housing growth, must be supported by a numerical infrastructure capacity assessment. This requirement applies to all relevant statutory and non-statutory infrastructure consultees and must include:

• Primary healthcare (GP surgeries)
• Education (local primary and secondary schools)
• Surface water drainage and foul sewage capacity

Each assessment must reflect the cumulative impact of all approved and pending applications in the settlement and must assume that earlier-submitted applications will be approved, in line with the “first-come, first-assessed” principle.

📊 Required Content of Infrastructure Responses

🏥 GP Services:

• Current patient list size of local GP practice(s)
• Ideal or safe capacity threshold (e.g. based on NHS England guidance)
• Estimated population yield from the proposed development
• Cumulative population added by recent and pending developments in the practice’s catchment area
• Statement on whether capacity will be exceeded, and if so:
  • What mitigation is proposed
  • What the funding will deliver (e.g. rooms, staff, digital access)
  • Whether it directly serves the affected settlement
  • Expected delivery timescale

🎒 Education:

• Current and forecast school capacity (primary and secondary)
• Pupil numbers currently on roll
• Estimated pupil yield from the proposed development
• Summary of pressure from other nearby or concurrent applications
• Statement on required mitigation and what it will deliver (e.g. expansions, mobile units)

💧 Drainage and Foul Water:

• Confirmation from the LLFA and sewerage undertaker on system capacity
• Details of any known flooding or overload history
• Assessment of whether the proposal, combined with other proposals, will trigger a requirement for upgrades or risk exceedance of existing systems

🛠️ Data Providers

✅ Implementation

• These requirements will be incorporated into EHDC’s Local Validation Checklist
• Applications lacking this data will be deemed invalid until complete
• EHDC will maintain and publish a Settlement Infrastructure Tracker, updated annually, showing housing approvals, pending applications, and known service pressures
• Infrastructure responses will be made public as part of each planning file and referenced in officer reports and decision notices
• All consultees will be issued with cumulative development summaries and must adjust their assessments accordingly

📝 Response Format and Accountability Requirements

To ensure consistency, accountability, and data integrity, all infrastructure consultee responses must be submitted using a standardised response form issued by EHDC, which includes:

📋 Required Format:

1. Pre-filled Contextual Data from EHDC, including:
   • Location of the development
   • Whether the site is within or outside the Local Plan
   • Number of dwellings proposed
   • Estimated population yield (based on EHDC’s standard household size)
   • Number of dwellings approved and pending in the settlement since the 2021 Census
   • Cumulative growth figure (% increase in population or households)
2. Mandatory Numerical Fields for Completion by the Consultee, including:
   • Current service capacity (e.g. patients per GP, school places, system flow capacity)
   • Actual usage or list size / roll figures
   • Thresholds for service strain or breach
   • Projected impact of the development (standalone and cumulative)
   • Description of any service upgrades or mitigation already delivered since 2011 or 2021
3. Mitigation Details (if applicable):
   • Description of any proposed mitigation
   • Estimated delivery timescale
   • Whether mitigation directly serves the affected settlement
   • Whether additional development can be supported before mitigation is in place
4. Consultee Identity and Accountability:
   • Named individual completing the form (or identifiable team reference)
   • Contact email or phone number for clarification
   • Organisation name and official capacity
   • Signature or digital reference ID of consultee response (for tracking and audit purposes)
5. Final Summary Position (tick-box with written explanation required):
   • ☑️ Unconditional support — infrastructure has capacity to support this development
   • ☑️ Conditional support — mitigation required before or alongside development
   • ☑️ Objection — infrastructure cannot support this development, and mitigation is not feasible or deliverable within a reasonable timeframe

This structured approach will:

• Prevent vague or recycled feedback
• Ensure cumulative growth and real-world capacity are acknowledged
• Clarify who is responsible for each response
• Make all responses easier to assess, track, and reference during public consultation or legal challenge

📘 Disclaimer: This document is a conceptual proposal prepared for consideration by East Hampshire District Council (EHDC). It does not represent current policy but outlines an optional framework that EHDC could choose to adopt, pilot, or develop further. It has been designed to be implementable in its current form or used as a foundation for future formal guidance or policy inclusion.

🧭 Educational Alignment

This pilot directly supports the national Citizenship curriculum, offering a hands-on opportunity to understand local democracy, evaluate public information, and participate in real civic processes. It helps students move from passive observers to active contributors in a system that directly affects their community.

This component proposes a collaborative pilot between EHDC and local secondary schools to improve the clarity, accessibility, and democratic quality of public-facing planning documents.

Young people aged 14–16 will be invited to test whether consultation materials, notices, and planning summaries are understandable to non-specialists — in particular, those with no formal planning or legal education. This initiative draws inspiration from democratic models like Switzerland, where public engagement is supported by education from an early age, and from the plain language legislation in Sweden that mandates clear communication in public administration.

The pilot will serve two core functions:

1. Plain Language Quality Assurance (QA): Students act as real-time reviewers, identifying terms, phrases, or formats that are unclear or misleading.
2. Civic Learning and Legal Literacy: Students gain early exposure to how planning, consultation, and community rights work — preparing the next generation of engaged citizens.

An agile development model will be applied: consultation materials will be released in beta form for school-based review. This will be a live project — using real consultation documents currently under development — allowing students to contribute meaningfully to the quality of public engagement in East Hampshire. Students will learn to test the clarity of each document using structured feedback tools, based on the following principles:

📄 What Makes a Document ‘Plain Language’?

• Uses short sentences and paragraphs.
• Avoids jargon unless essential — and defines it clearly if used.
• Explains all acronyms on first use.
• Uses active voice (e.g. “We will review your response” not “Your response will be reviewed”).
• Includes a glossary of key terms.
• Follows a logical structure with clear headings and sections.
• Includes links or references when background context is needed.
• A 15-year-old should be able to read it and explain what it means.

Feedback is then recorded in a bug/comment-style system using categories such as:

• ‘vague’
• ‘legal jargon’
• ‘unexplained acronym’
• ‘missing glossary entry’
• ‘missing contextual link’
• ‘navigation unclear’
• ‘too complex overall’

This feedback loop allows materials to be improved before public release and teaches students how to identify and articulate barriers to fair engagement. The digital feedback tool should include tooltips linked to each category, guiding students with example issues, definitions, and suggestions for improvement.

To further enrich the educational impact, EHDC may also consider introducing an optional recognition scheme. Students who demonstrate strong insight, clarity in feedback, or leadership in the review process could receive a signed ‘Well Done’ letter or certificate from the council. This could contribute meaningfully to their personal portfolios, college applications, or future job-seeking credentials — reinforcing the real-world value of civic participation.

📘 Disclaimer: This document is a conceptual proposal prepared for consideration by East Hampshire District Council (EHDC). It does not represent current policy but outlines an optional framework that EHDC could choose to adopt, pilot, or develop further. It has been designed to be implementable in its current form or used as a foundation for future formal guidance or policy inclusion.

⚖️ Developer vs Resident: A Legal Power Gap

• Developers:
  ✔ Full legal teams (solicitors, barristers, appeal specialists)
  ✔ Planning and viability consultants
  ✔ Financial resources to appeal or threaten legal action
  ✔ Familiarity with planning law
• Residents:
  ✖ Rarely have access to legal advice
  ✖ Often unaware of their rights
  ✖ No funding for Judicial Review
  ✖ Consultation responses easily ignored

This gap is especially dangerous under the tilted balance — where protections are weaker, and major developments can override local plans.

This component introduces a mechanism to help communities affected by major developments approved under the tilted balance to access early legal support or review.

Developers who are able to pursue major development projects typically have access to substantial financial resources. They almost always have dedicated legal teams — often including solicitors and barristers — along with planning consultants and viability specialists, all ready to defend their applications, challenge conditions, or appeal refusals. This level of institutional and financial power places residents at a structural disadvantage. Local residents, on the other hand, are often left unaware of their rights or unable to afford advice to challenge flawed or unfair decisions. This imbalance is especially damaging under the tilted balance, where applications outside the Local Plan are often approved despite significant local objection and long-term consequences.

Component 15 proposes a structured trigger that ensures residents are:

• Alerted when a tilted balance approval has been granted.
• Offered a transparent explanation of their rights.
• Provided with tools to raise legal concerns or access public-interest legal support.

This trigger could be integrated into the existing postcode-searchable system (from Component 14) and should be tied to specific indicators such as unresolved objections, lack of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), or absence of democratic scrutiny.

The goal is not to flood courts with challenges, but to ensure that serious legal risks are not ignored simply because those affected can’t afford to speak up.

📘 Disclaimer: This document is a conceptual proposal prepared for consideration by East Hampshire District Council (EHDC). It does not represent current policy but outlines an optional framework that EHDC could choose to adopt, pilot, or develop further. It has been designed to be implementable in its current form or used as a foundation for future formal guidance or policy inclusion.

This component introduces a new, structured format for public consultations on major planning This component introduces a new, structured format for public consultations on major planning applications, with an immediate beta-stage rollout focused on applications submitted under the tilted balance. These out-of-plan schemes carry significant public impact and require urgent attention to transparency. Rather than waiting for a finalised model, EHDC is encouraged to adopt an agile development approach: iteratively improving consultation materials and formats based on early use and feedback.

The format is inspired by how Switzerland educates its citizens before referenda and Sweden’s legally embedded plain language principles, formalised in the Swedish Language Act (2009:600), which requires public communication to be “cultivated, simple and comprehensible.”

Effective communication is the foundation of meaningful engagement. Without tailoring public consultations to the needs and understanding of their intended audience — as is now widely recognised in law and policy as a basic requirement for fair consultation — such processes risk becoming a performative exercise: a ‘fake until you make it’ format that undermines democratic trust.

⚖️ Systemic Imbalance

In practice, unfair or inaccessible consultations are almost never taken to court — not because they’re fair, but because ordinary people don’t have the time, legal knowledge, or financial means to mount a Judicial Review. Developers can afford legal teams to defend their interests; most residents cannot even access theirs. This imbalance allows flawed consultations to continue unchecked, undermining the law’s intent.

If a system claims to value fairness but only makes it enforceable for those with power or money, it is not a fair system — it is a broken one. The law expects meaningful consultation. Councils have a duty to deliver it — not just legally, but ethically.

The aim is to ensure that the public can not only comment on proposals, but genuinely understand them — and receive clear responses on whether their input was considered, why, and how.

Major applications must present key information in plain English, clearly define planning terms (especially material considerations), and gather feedback using a guided questionnaire format.

This format should include:

• A plain-language summary of the proposed development.
• A glossary defining key planning concepts and material considerations.
• A structured set of public-facing questions (tick-box + optional comment fields).
• A postcode-searchable interface allowing residents to find nearby developments, track consultations, and optionally opt in to a ‘notify me’ alert system. Residents could be notified when applications arise within a defined radius of their postcode, ensuring people affected by shared infrastructure or cumulative impacts are not overlooked.
• A reporting tool that shows whether public concerns were:
  • Material,
  • Mitigated, or
  • Not considered material (with reason given).

The outcome of consultation must be available publicly, and linked to named officers or agents responsible for addressing each category of concern.

This mirrors elements of Swiss referenda — where citizens are educated about policy choices in a structured and accessible way — and introduces early democratic accountability into local planning.