Its role is to promote sustainable development by assessing the extent to which the emerging plan will help to achieve environmental, economic and social objectives. It also includes the requirements of strategic environmental assessment (SEA).
The SA attempts to predict the likely positive and negative effects that the delivery of the local plan will have on people and the environment. The report recommends how the local plan can be prepared so that negative effects can be reduced or eliminated, and positive effects created or improved. It also proposes monitoring so that how the local plan affects people and the environment can be seen.
The sustainability appraisal is an evolving process and, in relation to the emerging local plan, will be done in the following stages:
A: setting the context and objectives, establishing the baseline and deciding on the scope (scoping report)
B: developing and refining options and assessing effects
C: preparing the sustainability appraisal report
D: consulting on the emerging Harrogate district local plan and the SA report
E: monitoring the significant effects of implementing the local plan
Updates
Sustainability appraisal post-adoption statement December 2020
We adopted the Harrogate district local plan on 4 March 2020. Following adoption, a legal challenge was raised against the new settlement policies in the plan. In line with the resulting court order, the whole of the local plan was remitted to us to consider whether or not to accept the Inspector's recommendations in so far as they related to the new settlement policies and whether or not to adopt the local plan with those policies, taking into account the full sustainability appraisal (SA) documentation and consultation responses. We adopted the local plan with the new settlement policies on 9 December 2020.
In accordance with Regulation 16 of the SEA Regulations, this document summarises key aspects of the SA/SEA work.
Sustainability appraisal post adoption statement December 2020 (pdf / 84 KB)
Sustainability appraisal addendum 3 main modifications July 2019
Following the examination hearing sessions, this addendum undertakes further SA work on the proposed changes, (referred to as main modifications), to the draft Harrogate district local plan. The Errata relates to main modifications MM162a and MM161 only. The addendum and Errata should be read in conjunction with previous SA assessment work carried out throughout the preparation of the local plan.
Sustainability appraisal addendum 3 main modifications July 2019 (pdf / 1 MB)
Errata to sustainability appraisal addendum 3: main modifications July 2019 (pdf / 177 KB)
Sustainability appraisal addendum 2 July 2019
This document is an addendum to the sustainability appraisal submission draft August 2018 and reports on additional SA work undertaken following a request from the Inspector appointed to carry out the examination of the Harrogate district local plan. The inspector considered it sensible for the SA to assess broad locations around each of the proposed potential new settlement sites that had been considered by us in preparing the local plan.
Sustainability appraisal addendum 2 July 2019 (pdf / 5 MB)
Sustainability appraisal submission draft August 2018
This iteration of the sustainability appraisal was submitted to the planning inspector as part of the local plan examination and updates the previous version of the document.
Sustainability appraisal submission draft August 2018 Part 1 (pdf / 6 MB)
Sustainability appraisal submission draft August 2018 Part 2 (pdf / 8 MB)
Sustainability appraisal submission draft August 2018 Part 3 (pdf / 18 MB)
Sustainability appraisal submission draft August 2018 Part 4 (pdf / 7 MB)
Sustainability appraisal submission draft August 2018 Part 5 (pdf / 9 MB)
Sustainability appraisal publication draft January 2018
This iteration of the sustainability appraisal accompanies the publication draft of the local plan 2018 and updates and consolidates all previous versions of the document. You can view the document via our consultation portal, or you can view PDFs of the document below. Due to the size of the document it has been split into a number of parts;
Sustainability appraisal publication - part 1 (pdf / 14 MB) and sustainability appraisal publication - part 2 (pdf / 18 MB)
Sustainability appraisal publication draft - part 1 (pdf / 6 MB)
Sustainability appraisal publication draft - part 2 (pdf / 8 MB)
Sustainability appraisal publication draft - part 3 (pdf / 12 MB)
Sustainability appraisal publication draft - part 4 (pdf / 7 MB)
Sustainability appraisal publication draft - part 5 (pdf / 9 MB)
Sustainability appraisal addendum one July 2017
The purpose of this report is to provide an addendum to the draft sustainability appraisal consulted in 2016 in order to support the additional sites consultation. The addendum contains assessments of additional draft housing and employment allocations, assessment of the draft settlement allocation at Green Hammerton and assessments of amended draft housing allocations. The addendum can be viewed below:
2017 sustainability appraisal addendum one (pdf / 3 MB)
Draft sustainability appraisal October 2016
This iteration of the sustainability appraisal, to accompany the draft local plan 2016, updates the interim report and clearly charts changes in the appraisal process and the further development of the plan. Having reached the draft plan stage the appraisal provides further assessment to inform a growth strategy and provides a detailed appraisal of all submitted sites. The report also includes a further assessment of draft development management policies. The draft sustainability appraisal can be viewed below:
2016 October - draft sustainability appraisal (pdf / 13 MB)
Sustainability appraisal draft development management policies November 2015
We undertook a targeted consultation on the draft development management policies to be included in the plan. This report accompanied the consultation.
Sustainability appraisal draft development management policies November 2015 (pdf / 832 KB)
Sustainability appraisal interim report July 2015
This is the second report prepared as part of the evidence base for the Harrogate district local plan and forms part of the issues and options consultation (17 July - 28 August 2015). This interim report builds upon the work undertaken at the scoping report stage and starts the process of developing and refining alternative growth options and assessing effects, and refines the assessment rationale for sites. The report also includes a summary of the comments received at the scoping report stage. The report and appendices can be viewed below.
- draft sustainability appraisal interim report - part 1 (pdf / 981 KB)
- draft sustainability appraisal interim report - part 2 (pdf / 6 MB)
- draft sustainability appraisal interim report - part 3 (pdf / 466 KB)
- draft sustainability appraisal interim report - part 4 (pdf / 10 MB)
Harrogate district local plan draft sustainability appraisal scoping report, (stage A of the process above)
We consulted on the Harrogate district local plan draft sustainability appraisal scoping report, (stage A of the process above), with Natural England, English Heritage and the Environment Agency, and a number of other key organisations. The report and appendices can be viewed below:
- draft sustainability appraisal scoping report - main report, September 2014 (pdf / 2 MB)
- appendix 1: The Environmental Assessment of Plans and Programmes Regulations 2004: Schedule 1 (pdf / 125 KB)
- appendix 2: review of plans, programmes and objectives (pdf / 409 KB)
- appendix 3: summary of the baseline position (pdf / 9 MB)
- appendix 4: sustainability appraisal framework and assessment rationale for sites (pdf / 304 KB)
- 5-9-2014 notification of consultation, letter to consultees (pdf / 88 KB)
A full consultation was not required at this stage.
Habitat regulations assessment
The objective of the habitat regulations assessment is to determine whether the emerging local plan is likely to have a significant effect on the achievement of the conservation objectives of the European conservation sites within and around the Harrogate district. These sites are:
- special protection areas (SPAs) for birds classified by the 1979 Wild Birds Directive
- Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) for other habitats and species designated through the 1992 Habitats Directive; and
- Ramsar sites, which are internationally important wetland areas designated under the Ramsar Convention
The habitat regulations assessment is a process which feeds into the development of the emerging local plan. To date, there have been three iterations of the habitat regulations assessment which can be viewed below. The next iteration will accompany the local plan: publication draft 2018. You can view the document via our consultation portal, or you can view the PDF of the document below.
- 2018 January local plan publication draft habitat regulations assessment (pdf / 13 MB)
- 2016 November draft local plan: habitat regulations assessment (pdf / 8 MB)
- 2015 November draft development management policies: habitat regulations assessment (pdf / 939 KB)
- 2015 July habitat regulations assessment screening opinion (pdf / 1 MB)