Sustainability Appraisal

Context

The principle of sustainable development encompasses social, environmental and economic issues, entailing concern with present and future generations. The Re-Deposit Replacement Local Plan was the subject of a Sustainability Appraisal that provided a means of defining, measuring and articulating the sustainability of the policies and proposals in that Plan. The Appraisal aimed to ensure that the policies within the Re-Deposit Replacement Local Plan were compatible with each other and general sustainability aims, in accordance with Government Guidance contained in PPS12 “Local Development Frameworks”.

The final Adopted Local Plan has not been the subject of any further Sustainability Appraisal as it was the product of a Binding Report from the Local Plan Inquiry Inspector. However, the Re-Deposit Replacement Local Plan Sustainability Appraisal is still available for download (below).

Aims

The Re-Deposit Replacement Local Plan Sustainability Appraisal aimed to be:

• A systematic review of the draft Replacement Local Plan policies, in order to evaluate their impacts on achieving sustainable development.
• An integral part of the plan making and review process, which allows for the evaluation of alternatives.
• Based on a range of environmental, social and economic criteria for achieving sustainable development.

The Scope of the Sustainability Appraisal

The Appraisal considered social, economic and environmental aspects of sustainable development, whilst recognizing intra-generational and inter-generational themes. The Appraisal was also location specific, accounting for factors relating expressly to the borough of St Edmundsbury.

The full Sustainability Appraisal document is available as a pdf file (256KB) here.