EIA screening for housing: the Schedule 2 thresholds

A residential scheme becomes capable of requiring environmental impact assessment when it falls within the urban development project category in Schedule 2 to the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2017. For housing, the applicable thresholds are more than 150 dwellings, or an overall development area of more than 5 hectares, or more than 1 hectare of urban development that is not dwellinghouse development. Cross one of those and the eia threshold housing development question is live.

Crossing a threshold does not mean EIA is required. It means the scheme must be screened, and the screening decision is taken against the selection criteria in Schedule 3 rather than against the threshold itself.

Where housing sits in Schedule 2

Schedule 1 lists development for which assessment is mandatory: crude oil refineries, large power stations, motorways, certain waste installations. Housing is not there and never reaches it, however large.

Schedule 2 works differently. It lists descriptions of development in one column and applicable thresholds and criteria in another. Housing falls under urban development projects, a category which also covers shopping centres, car parks, sports stadiums, leisure centres and multiplex cinemas.

The category is wider than it looks. A mixed-use scheme with retail or offices at ground floor engages the non-dwellinghouse limb as well as the dwellings limb, and a scheme of student accommodation, extra care housing or build to rent is still urban development even where the unit count is expressed differently.

The dwelling, area and floorspace triggers

Two definitional points decide a lot of cases.

The overall area of the development is the site area, and it is not confined to the built footprint. Public open space, attenuation basins, landscape buffers and the access corridor all count. A scheme of 90 houses on a generous layout crosses the 5 hectare line without coming near the dwelling threshold.

The dwellings figure is more than 150, not 150 or more. A scheme of exactly 150 does not meet that limb, though it may meet another.

None of these thresholds is a limit on development. They are the point at which the screening duty engages, and a scheme below every threshold outside a sensitive area is simply not Schedule 2 development at all.

Sensitive areas and the loss of thresholds

This is the provision that catches small schemes, and it catches them hard. Development of a description in Schedule 2 is Schedule 2 development if it is either above the applicable threshold or in a sensitive area. In a sensitive area, the thresholds fall away.

Sensitive areas are defined in the Regulations and include sites of special scientific interest, National Parks, National Landscapes, the Broads, World Heritage Sites, scheduled monuments and European sites.

So a six-unit scheme inside a National Landscape is Schedule 2 development and has to be screened. In practice the screening opinion will usually be negative, because the Schedule 3 criteria are about the likelihood of material effects and six houses rarely produce them. But the duty exists, and skipping it leaves the eventual permission open to challenge.

Where the site touches designated land without being in it, the thresholds still apply, though the proximity feeds into the screening judgement under the location criteria.

Cumulative schemes and phasing

Schedule 3 requires the cumulation of the development with other existing or approved development to be taken into account. That is where phased sites get into trouble.

Bringing forward a site in three applications of 60 units each does not avoid the 150 threshold if the phases are, in substance, one project. The courts and the Secretary of State have consistently treated artificial splitting as unlawful, and a council that grants permission on a split basis has produced a vulnerable decision rather than a clever one.

Legitimate phasing is different from splitting. Where a masterplan is submitted as an outline application for the whole site, with reserved matters phases beneath it, the screening is done on the whole and the phasing raises no issue. The problem arises where separate applications are presented as unrelated when the land, the ownership and the access tell a different story.

Where the site adjoins another consented scheme, address cumulation head on in the screening request. Name the neighbouring permission, its reference and its scale, and explain the combined position. Screening requests that ignore an obvious neighbour invite a positive screening opinion.

What a positive screening does to the programme

A positive screening opinion changes the shape of the application, not just its length.

1. An Environmental Statement must be prepared, and the Regulations require it to be prepared by competent experts, with a statement of the expertise used.
2. Scoping is optional but usually worth requesting, because it fixes the topics and the methods with the council and the statutory consultees.
3. Publicity and consultation requirements are wider, and the statutory determination period becomes 16 weeks rather than 13.
4. The council cannot grant permission until it has taken the environmental information into account.
5. Surveys for ecology, noise, air quality and transport become fixed programme items, and the seasonal ones set the earliest possible submission date.

Environmental impact assessment is one of the report types where a licensed or competent professional is legally required. The Regulations require the Environmental Statement to be prepared by competent experts, so an Environmental Impact Assessment draft is a starting point for that team rather than a substitute for it, and the same applies to specialist chapters.

Designing below a threshold honestly

Reducing a scheme to sit below a threshold is a legitimate design decision. Presenting a project as smaller than it is, is not.

The distinction is about substance. A developer who reduces a scheme from 165 to 140 units because the site works better at that density has made a planning judgement. A developer who submits 140 units while holding an option on the adjoining field, with an access designed to serve both, has created a cumulation problem that a screening opinion will find.

There is also a practical argument for not fighting the threshold. Where the effects really are significant, a well-scoped Environmental Statement is a stronger submission than a set of standalone reports, because it forces the interactions between topics to be addressed in one place.

Recording the screening position

Three routes exist, and choosing the right one is worth a few minutes' thought.

Request a formal screening opinion from the council before applying. The authority has three weeks, extendable by agreement, and the opinion binds the position for that scheme. This is the cleanest route for anything near a threshold.

Submit a screening statement with the application, setting out why the development is not EIA development. The council will still adopt its own opinion, but a reasoned statement makes that straightforward and reduces the risk of a request for further information stopping the clock.

Or take no step at all, which is only safe where the scheme is comfortably below every threshold and nowhere near a sensitive area.

Whichever route you take, record the reasoning against the Schedule 3 criteria, not against the threshold. And keep the evidence: the site area calculation, the sensitive area check from the published mapping, the neighbouring permissions considered and the date.

Illustrative example: 118 dwellings on 5.4 hectares next to a permitted scheme of 70 units sharing the same access. The dwelling threshold is not met. The area threshold is. The cumulative position with the neighbouring permission is the substance of the screening request, and it is the paragraph the officer will read twice.

Other thresholds bite well before EIA does. An Affordable Housing Statement is engaged at ten units, a Statement of Community Involvement at around fifty on many sites, and a Transport Assessment at scales far below the EIA line. Scope them together at the outset.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Screening turns on the facts of the scheme and the site, so take advice from a qualified professional and agree the position with your local planning authority before relying on it.

Fix the screening position before you commission the evidence base. Browse the report types by category to see what a major residential scheme normally needs.

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