ABSTRACT
Environmental Assessment has always been part of any development process – though not under that name, nor in that form – and it is interesting to look at earlier reports and to see how closely they are related to the present-day practice of environmental study and analysis. The historical assessments are different from modern practice, more because of their simple approach and positive conclusions than because of any great difference in philosophy. The demand for some sort of Environmental Assessment has naturally been made by the sufferers from development rather than by the developers, and among the more publicized contemporary resistances to development are the objections made by the people of south-east England to the Channel Tunnel and the high-speed rail link to London. They may seem unusually well organized, but then they have been there before.
