Environmental Planning
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT
Client: Bristol City Council
Background: The Landmark Practice was appointed by the Bristol City Council Energy Management Unit (BCC EMU) to manage an Environmental Impact Assessment for construction of two wind turbines on a brownfield site at Severnside, Bristol.
Description: The development site, on the foreshore of the River Severn, was formerly used as a bulk oil and fuel depot. Following decommissioning, the site was left unmanaged and had developed a diverse flora, including some notable plant species.
The Landmark Practice prepared an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Scoping Report to inform scoping by the local authority in consultation with and statutory and non-statutory consultees. This early discussion ensured that the scope of the EIA was sufficiently robust to consider all potentially significant impacts of the proposed development. Further stakeholder and public consultation throughout the EIA kept consultees up to date and enabled impacts to be addressed prior to submission of a planning application.
The Landmark environmental planning team was responsible for managing the EIA process, for coordinating site design, opportunities and constraints analysis and preparation of the Environmental Statement (ES). The ES comprised technical impact assessments including Aviation and Radar, Flood Risk, Telecommunications, Archaeology, Ecology, Ornithology, Visual Impact and Noise.
In addition to EIA co-ordination, Landmark’s ecology team assessed impacts on habitats, birds and protected species within the development site and its environs, including the internationally designated Severn Estuary European site. A full Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment (LVIA) was prepared by Landmark landscape architects, who considered the effect of the wind turbines on the highly sensitive residential areas of Lawrence Weston and Bristol urban fringes, nearby historic parks and gardens and the public footpaths and residential properties on the Welsh coastline.
Client Benefits: The EIA identified similar development constraints to those faced by the now operational Avonmouth Docks wind turbines (Landmark led the successful planning application for the Bristol Port Company’s wind turbine scheme in 2005, the first in South West England to be granted without recourse to appeal).
Mitigation measures to avoid affecting the bird interest of the Severn Estuary, and to ensure no loss of visibility for aircraft radar were agreed prior to submission of the planning application. This streamlined the determination process and the agreed mitigation was secured by planning conditions.