Environmental impact assessments (FOI)

​Request

The Minister for the Environment has agreed to waiver the requirement to provide an environmental impact assessment for a number of developments that under the Planning and Building (Environmental Impact) (Jersey) Order 2006 would otherwise require one.

Please can I see all available documentation, advice, and / or information that the Minister for the Environment used to inform their decisions to waive the need for an environmental impact statements, specifically those that involved development onto beaches and / or that fall under Schedule 1, part 11, section (12) of the Order: 'Any development on land covered or, in the normal course of tides, from time to time covered by sea water'.

Response

The information requested is exempt under Article 23 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 because the information is accessible by other means.

All decisions to waive Environment Impact Assessments (EIA) are made by recorded Ministerial Decision and are available to view on gov.je at the following link:

Ministerial Decisions

Follow the link above and enter the word ‘impact’ in the search engine which will filter out the majority of Ministerial Decisions that are not relevant.

The majority of Ministerial Decisions made by the Minister are after oral advice provided by a Planning Officer. Consequently there are no documents or paperwork. There are very few cases that a written report may have been provided. If a written report was passed to the Minister it will be attached to the Ministerial Decision that is published online.

The criteria for setting aside the requirement for an EIA is judged by the scale of the project. An Environment Impact Assessment is not considered appropriate for very small projects, (such as creation of steps from top of sea wall to beach) where the impacts are plainly negligible. In cases such as these a proportionate approach to this regulation is taken and the Minister is advised accordingly to waive the requirement.

Article applied

Article 23 Information accessible to applicant by other means

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it is reasonably available to the applicant, otherwise than under this Law, whether or not free of charge.

(2) A scheduled public authority that refuses an application for information on this ground must make reasonable efforts to inform the applicant where the applicant may obtain the information.