Policy paper

Habitats regulations assessment: non-technical summary

Updated 18 April 2023

Applies to England

1. Introduction

This is the habitats regulations assessment (HRA) non-technical summary of the South West river basin district (RBD) flood risk management plan (FRMP).

The HRA has been undertaken in accordance with The Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations (The Habitat Regulations) 2017 (as amended) and considers the potential implications of the FRMP on designated European conservation sites. These sites contain species and habitats that are important at a European scale.

The FRMP, covering the years between 2021 and 2027, seeks to manage significant flood-related issues in the South West RBD, including 19 specifically identified Flood Risk Area. It covers an area of 21,000km² in Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, the Isles of Scilly, Lundy Island, and parts of Somerset, Hampshire and Wiltshire. The South West FRMP seeks to reduce a range of flooding threats, including from:

• rivers
• the sea
• surface water
• groundwater
• sewers
• canals
• reservoirs

The need for protecting human receptors should be viewed in the context of the environmental challenges present in the South West RBD. Many geographic areas in the RBD are experiencing growth and need to mitigate climate change. Therefore, many freshwater and coastal habitats in the RBD, important in sustaining wintering wildfowl, fish populations and terrestrial species (for example otters), are subject to a wide range of human impacts, such as recreational pressure, reduced water flow / level, declining water quality and coastal squeeze.

This HRA assesses the potential for the South West FRMP to result in likely significant effects (LSEs) and, where applicable, adverse effects on the integrity of European sites (such as the ability of those sites to achieve their conservation objectives).

2. Methodology

The Habitats Regulations 2017 (as amended) set out the specific assessment steps required for the HRA process.

The first step in the sequence of tests, often referred to as HRA screening, establishes whether a more detailed analysis known as ‘appropriate assessment’ is required. The purpose of HRA screening is to determine, in view of the best available scientific knowledge, whether a plan or project, either alone or in-combination with other plans or projects, could result in LSEs on European sites in view of their conservation objectives.

3. Test of likely significant effects

All measures included in the South West RBD were assessed for LSEs on the European sites across and within 10km of the RBD. None of the measures were identified to result in LSEs on any European site for a range of reasons, including that they are:

• too non-specific to assess meaningfully
• already being implemented - having undergone HRA previously
• being subjected to a separate consenting process - as applies to local flood risk management plans, shoreline management plans (SMPs) and coastal strategies
• desk-based and involving no physical activity on the ground
• remote from vulnerable sites
• worded such they are about ‘investigating’, ‘reviewing’ and ‘identifying opportunities’

One group of measures was found to commit to physical work on the ground by ‘delivering’ or ‘implementing’ flood management interventions, such as coastal defence structures or natural flood management approaches. The broad location of some measures, is known, enabling a broad assessment of their proximity to European sites and potential linking impact pathways. However, detailed HRA (including ‘appropriate assessment’) was deferred to either lower-tier plans or the planning application stage when details on the nature of proposals are available. This approach was adopted to account for the strategic (and thereby necessarily non-specific) nature of the FRMP, while also identifying the measures with the highest impact potential on European sites.

This HRA also identified that a range of measures in the South West FRMP have the potential to improve the hydrological condition of European sites across the RBD, particularly in the Somerset Levels and Moors Special Protection Area (SPA) and Ramsar, which is increasingly subject to prolonged winter flooding.

Overall, it was shown that the FRMP represents a positive framework that will help achieve the Conservation Objectives of the SPA and Ramsar such as by:

• fostering collaboration with land owners through the Environment Land Management Scheme
• updating and delivering Water Level Management Plans
• developing a new flood risk management strategy
• increasing the capacity of key waterbodies within the SPA and Ramsar (for example River Sowy and the Kinds Sedgemoor Drain system).

4. Other plans and projects

The potential for the FRMP to result in LSEs on European sites in-combination with (i.e. when considered alongside) other plans and projects was also assessed. Many such plans are proposed across the RBD, which are associated with their own impact potential. For example, local authorities are proposing a minimum of 348,574 new dwellings and 1,360.67ha of employment land within the timescales of their current local plans and core strategies. There is also a potential for cumulative impacts with drought orders and permits, the Environment Agency national drought plan and SMPs.

Potential in-combination LSEs with local plan development were excluded due to most measures not being associated with impact pathways linking to European sites, the fact that some measures are only included for completeness being driven by entirely separate plan processes, and the strategic nature of the FRMP, meaning that those measures with potential interactions with European sites depend upon considerable further development before the presence of any impact pathways can be clearly identified.

5. Conclusion

LSEs of the FRMP on all European sites, both alone and in-combination, were excluded for all measures and an Appropriate Assessment was not required. This was based on various factors, including some measures:

• having already been subject to the statutory consenting process, including HRA
• being already implemented
• not associated with impact pathways linking to European sites
• too non-specific either in terms of specific location or their nature or both to allow for a detailed meaningful assessment

Notably, 24 measures were screened out at the strategic FRMP level, but recommended for down-the-line HRA since the measures are sufficiently broadly expressed that they could be delivered without adverse effects but this will need to be reassessed as actual schemes are developed. As the details of potential schemes are developed towards the planning application stage, the HRA process will ensure that adequate mitigation measures, where relevant, are incorporated and the integrity of European sites will be protected.