The government’s Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill is set to bring in a new system of environmental assessment for development projects for England. Environmental Outcomes Reports (EORs) are set to replace the current EU-derived Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) processes. Under the proposed new scheme, instead of assessing the likely significant effects of a development, projects will have to report against the achievement of specified “outcomes”. The outcomes to be measured will be specified in secondary legislation. In responding to the consultation, the IOA recommends what these outcomes should be for noise. IOA advise that given the impact and effects of noise are complex, using simple numerical noise exposure indicators will not achieve the desired outcome. An alternative would be to use a simple summary of the numbers of people still adversely affected by noise after, as policy requires, reasonable steps have been taken to mitigate and minimise those adverse effects.
