Sustainability Appraisal

The purpose of sustainability appraisal (SA) is to promote more sustainable development by checking and testing a plan, policy of programme for the quality and robustness of its environmental, social and economic content.  Sustainability appraisal is iterative and must be closely linked with the plan-making process.

For certain statutory plans a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) is required by law in line with the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) Directive (2001/42/EC).  This Directive requires the assessment to be centred around and measured against a clear set of evidence or baseline data.

Cumbria County Council's Sustainability Team have developed a Sustainability Appraisal Framework for Cumbria. The document is used as the basis for testing plans and policies that require SA or SEA.  The framework provides a best practice approach to appraisal and has been widely applied both within and outside Cumbria.

Follow the links below to view the sustainability framework and examples of sustainability appraisals carried out by the Sustainability Team:

• Cumbria Sustainability Appraisal Framework (16.25 KB PDF) FULL DOCUMENT
  
  
• Sustainability Appraisal of Cumbria Wind Energy Supplementary Planning Document (Sustainability Report) (1.26 MB PDF) FULL DOCUMENT
  
  
• Sustainability Appraisal of the Cumbria Local Area Agreement (LAA) (103 KB PDF) FULL DOCUMENT