The Environmental Pillar and Sustainable Water Network (SWAN) welcome the review of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) (Agriculture) Regulations 2011 (SI 456) as an important step towards addressing the inadequacy of the current Regulations to assess environmental impact and ensure environmental protection.
The current Regulations, introduced in 2011 with amendments in 2013 and 2017, are widely considered to be inadequate in terms of i) the insufficient detail of the Regulations, ii) the poor standard of current implementation, iii) the failure to carry out a regulatory impact assessment of the Regulations, and iv) gaps in monitoring and enforcement. To be fit for purpose, it is crucial that the Regulations are significantly tightened and that monitoring and enforcement processes are fully implemented.
