Environmental Statement or preliminary environmental information
Schedule 4 sets what an Environmental Statement must contain and requires competent experts. Preliminary environmental information has no content list and a different job. Here is how to use each.
An Environmental Statement is the statutory document that accompanies an application for environmental impact assessment development. Preliminary environmental information is the earlier, lighter material a developer puts in front of consultation bodies so they can form a view before the statement exists. One is a submission requirement defined by regulation. The other is a consultation tool, and confusing the two leads to a document that is too thin to submit and too heavy to consult on.
The Environmental Impact Assessment Regulations 2017 define both. Only one of them has a prescribed content list.
What the statutory statement must contain
Schedule 4 to the 2017 Regulations sets the content. In substance an Environmental Statement has to describe the development, including its location, design, size and the physical characteristics of the whole project, and describe the baseline against which effects are judged.
It must describe the likely significant effects on population and human health, biodiversity, land, soil, water, air and climate, material assets, cultural heritage and landscape, including the interaction between them. It must cover the reasonable alternatives studied by the developer and give the main reasons for the option chosen. It must set out the measures proposed to avoid, prevent, reduce or offset those effects, and it must include a non-technical summary and a description of the forecasting methods used.
Two requirements are procedural rather than descriptive and are often skipped. The regulations require the statement to be prepared by competent experts, and they require the developer to supply a statement setting out the relevant expertise or qualifications of those experts. That is a hard requirement, not a courtesy, and an environmental statement without it is incomplete.
What preliminary environmental information is for
The regulations define preliminary environmental information as information compiled by the developer that is reasonably required for consultation bodies to develop an informed view of the likely environmental effects of the development.
The definition is deliberately open. There is no prescribed content list, no schedule, and no non-technical summary requirement. What it has to do is give a consultee enough to respond intelligently: the scheme as currently designed, the topics scoped in, the survey work done and still to do, the emerging findings and the mitigation being considered.
In the regime for nationally important infrastructure projects this material is a formal part of statutory pre-application consultation, and it is normally issued as a preliminary environmental information report. In the town and country planning regime its use is a matter of practice rather than a universal statutory duty, so check what the particular consent route requires before you assume a report is needed.
Consultation before submission
The reason to produce preliminary information at all is that it moves the argument earlier, when the design can still respond.
Statutory consultees answer a scoping request with a list of topics and methods. They answer preliminary environmental information with substantive comments on findings, which is a different and more useful thing. Where a consultee's objection would otherwise appear in week five of a sixteen-week determination, it appears instead while there is still time to change a layout or add a survey season.
The cost is control. Once emerging findings are circulated, they are in the public domain and they will be quoted back at you if the final statement reaches a different conclusion. Where a conclusion is likely to move, say so in the preliminary document and explain what further work will settle it. Consultees are far more tolerant of a stated uncertainty than of a reversal.
A Statement of Community Involvement should record this consultation and what changed as a result, because the officer report will ask.
Competent experts, and who they are
The competent expert requirement bites on the Environmental Statement, and by extension on the specialists whose chapters sit inside it. Ecology, noise, air quality, heritage, transport, landscape and water each need an author whose competence can be demonstrated.
For preliminary information the requirement is not expressed in the same terms, but producing it with non-specialists is a false economy. The preliminary document sets the methods that the final chapters will follow, and a method a consultee rejects at preliminary stage has to be redone.
Name the authors, their organisation and their chartered or registered status in both documents. Where a specialist is engaged only for the final statement, say who will write the chapter. Hazardous substances consent or an environmental permit covers the parallel consents that often need the same specialists.
Structure and the non-technical summary
| Element | Environmental Statement | Preliminary environmental information |
|---|---|---|
| Content prescribed by regulation | Yes, Schedule 4 | No |
| Non-technical summary required | Yes | Not required, usually provided |
| Competent expert requirement | Expressly required | Good practice |
| Alternatives considered | Required, with reasons | Usually indicative |
| Status | Accompanies the application | Supports consultation |
The non-technical summary is the most read and least resourced part of an Environmental Statement. It has to convey the assessed effects in plain language, and it is what most objectors, councillors and journalists will actually read. Write it last, by someone who did not write the chapters, and keep it free of residual significance tables.
Chapter structure should be consistent across topics: baseline, method and significance criteria, assessment of effects, mitigation, residual effects, cumulative effects. Consultees mark against that structure, and a chapter that invents its own order invites a request for clarification.
Requests for further information
The authority can require further information where it considers the statement inadequate, and can ask for evidence to verify information already supplied. Each request restarts publicity and consultation on the additional material, with its own representation period, and that is where EIA programmes slip.
The defence is unglamorous: agree the scope in writing beforehand through a scoping opinion, follow it, and where you depart from it say so and explain why in the chapter. A departure explained in advance is a discussion. A departure discovered by a consultee is a request for further information.
Publicity for an application accompanied by an Environmental Statement runs for a longer minimum period than an ordinary application, and the determination period for EIA development is sixteen weeks rather than thirteen. Build both into the programme.
Sequencing the two
- Screen the project, and obtain a screening opinion if there is any doubt.
- Request a scoping opinion and agree the topics, methods and significance criteria.
- Commission surveys early, because seasonal constraints dictate the programme more than anything else.
- Issue preliminary environmental information to consultation bodies when the design is settled enough to be worth commenting on and loose enough to change.
- Respond to the comments in the design, and record what changed.
- Prepare the Environmental Statement, including the alternatives chapter, the expert competence statement and the non-technical summary.
- Submit, and expect the sixteen-week clock and the longer publicity period.
An Environmental Impact Assessment is one of the report types where competent experts are legally required, and any AI-assisted draft is a starting point for those experts rather than a substitute for them. Arranging that input through the professional directory before the chapters are written costs less than commissioning it after a request for further information.
PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval. For specialist technical reports, qualified professional input may be required.
Frequently asked questions
Is a preliminary environmental information report a legal requirement?
In the regime for nationally important infrastructure projects it forms part of statutory pre-application consultation. In the town and country planning regime its use is largely a matter of practice, although the Environmental Impact Assessment Regulations 2017 do define preliminary environmental information. Check what your consent route requires rather than assuming a report is mandatory.
Who has to write an Environmental Statement?
Competent experts. The 2017 Regulations require it expressly, and they also require the developer to provide a statement of the relevant expertise or qualifications of those experts. Name the authors, their organisations and their chartered or registered status, because an environmental statement without that material is incomplete.
Does the statement have to consider alternatives?
Yes. Schedule 4 requires a description of the reasonable alternatives studied by the developer, relevant to the project and its specific characteristics, with an indication of the main reasons for the option chosen and a comparison of environmental effects. An alternatives chapter written after the design was fixed tends to read that way.
What happens if the council asks for further information?
The authority can require further information where it considers the statement inadequate. The additional material has to be publicised and consulted on in its own right, with its own representation period, which is the most common cause of slippage on EIA programmes. Agreeing scope in writing beforehand is the main defence.
How long does EIA development take to determine?
The statutory determination period for EIA development is sixteen weeks rather than the thirteen weeks for other major development, and publicity for an application accompanied by an Environmental Statement runs for a longer minimum period. Build both into the programme, together with time for any request for further information.
Sources and further reading
This article is general guidance about the planning system in England and, where stated, the rest of the UK. It is not legal or professional advice. Check your local planning authority’s validation requirements and take professional advice for your specific site.