ABSTRACT
The impact of the European Union has been predominantly in the field of environmental controls but is now being felt more directly on mainstream planning practice and urban policy. The most striking and perhaps best known example of EU influence is environmental impact assessment, but other examples in cross-border and transnational spatial planning are emerging. Later chapters identify a range of agricultural, environmental, economic, and regional policies of the EU which are having an effect on parts of the British planning system. Chapter 4 includes a note on supranational and cross-border planning instruments and policies that have been introduced at the European level. Here, a brief and more general account is given of the main EU institutions and the parts of most importance to planning.
