ABSTRACT
In July 1988 the EC Directive concerning Environmental Impact Assessment came into force in the UK. In the North West of England, of the first 40,000 applications submitted for development approval after it came into force, only one hundredth of one percent, a total of four applications, required an Environmental Impact Statement. Those four are individually significant but there is also a need to know the significance of the cumulative effect of the other developments. The impact of these other developments is ignored in the assessment of the total impact of development. The environmental impact of the full lifetime dynamics of the developments from construction through to demolition is also ignored. There needs to be a holistic appraisal of the ‘cradle to grave’ life of a development to be able to assess the environmental impact.
