ABSTRACT
Project screening, to decide if a project needs to go through the EIA procedures (making an Environmental Statement and assessing it) in support of a planning application, is the “gateway” into EIA. It has two important characteristics: first many projects being screened are likely to be found not to require EIA. Therefore, the number of projects screened is likely to be much higher than the number of projects eventually subjected to EIA, and screening is likely to become a routine procedure to which more and more projects are subjected. Second, the pressures of project-screening cut across the public-private divide and affect agents on both sides of the development control system. It is engrained in the system that (public) controlling-agencies have the need for adequate project screening, but also private developers can benefit from similar capabilities to “try out” different project configurations and find out if they require extra EIA work, before entering the complicated and expensive development control process.
