Mitigation and Enhancement Measures

Overview

The SEA aims to prevent, reduce or offset any significant adverse effects as far as possible before mitigation measures are proposed. In addition to preventing or minimising adverse effects, mitigation measures have also been provided for SEA topics where many uncertain effects were predicted in the assessment.

The mitigation measures and enhancement opportunities consider:

• the environmental baseline data
• the environmental requirements emerging from the plans and policies review,
• the SEA objectives
• feedback received from the consultation on the SEA Scoping Report, including local context and feasibility
• key issues and opportunities identified during the development of the A96 Corridor Review and during the production of the draft EqIA and other Impact Assessments
• feedback from the SEA Consultation Authorities and other key stakeholders.

Further Environmental Assessment

As discussed in the sections above, further environmental assessment will be required at the project level. For any transport intervention options that arise from the A96 Corridor Review should be subject to the usual consideration through the relevant consenting process, supplemented where appropriate by the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), HRA, and via site controls and Environmental Management Plans. This environmental assessment will therefore enable the clear identification of constraints, opportunities and ecosystem services at the site/project level, which in turn will allow the development of targeted and detailed mitigation, enhancement and monitoring measures.