The Fuel Service Stations Policy has been the subject of a range of controversies due to a number of development applications that are being or have been considered by the Planning Authority.
The role of the ERA is one that seeks to achieve the delicate balance between safeguarding environmental integrity while ensuring sustainable economic growth.
ERA’s role in the development process is to provide reasoned feedback to the Planning Authority on matters related to the environment and how it may be affected by the particular case of development.
Such development and planning pro-cesses are normally guided by policies and legislation which themselves include environmental safeguards to ensure sustainable development.
The ERA needs to ensure that such safeguards are fully respected. In addition, the ERA has the responsibility of ensuring that certain projects, which may have significant impacts on the environment, are properly assessed through the environmental impact assessment (EIA) process.
This EIA process is to provide the decision taker with a complete picture of the facts and matters that may arise should the development or activity that is being applied for be considered favourably. However, the fact is that the strategic aspect, particularly the piecemeal uptake of un-developed rural land or the cumulative impact of a number of proposals in the different areas can neither be studied nor analysed through an EIA. The EIA as a development tool cannot be expected to answer all long-term planning questions.
There is no doubt that the primary thrust of the Fuel Service Stations Policy was, and is, crucially important to safeguard human health from the associated risks of urban fuel stations.
As stated by the same policy, the relocation of such stations to less urbanised locations should be undertaken taking full account of environmental and other considerations. This is what makes sense.
This policy has also triggered a number of new fuel stations without any prior commitment to relocate existing fuel pumps
However, as is sometimes the case, the implementation of any sensible policy may lead to undesirable effects, often due to being broadly interpreted or other circumstances. Evidently in such cases, any policy needs to be revisited to fine-tune it.
In fact, one of the deficiencies of the policy is that it can be interpreted broadly, and experience so far has shown that it gives an open-door approach to commercial development in non-urban areas, justified as being ancillary to fuel service stations.
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The policy has also triggered a number of new fuel stations without any prior commitment to relocate existing fuel pumps, which are creating a problem in the urban areas, and this has defeated one of the principle needs for the policy. It has unfortunately given wide leeway for the development of fuel service stations on land outside the development zone.
This is a disconcerting situation to the ERA as the regulator on environmental matters, to the extent that it has invoked its legal right to appeal cases. The ERA is not taking its right to appeal leniently and has invoked it in instances where the policy has been abusively interpreted to serve as a pretext for further land grabs.
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The ERA’s intent is to attack the broad interpretations of the policy, and decisive consideration is given to the merits of the case prior to the ERA decision on whether to appeal or not.
It is not the ERA’s intent to gain popularity with the public by filing appeals before the tribunal simply to increase its corporate image and be regarded as the forceful watchdog that has an appeal ready for every permission granted for new or relocated fuel stations.
On the contrary, the ERA bases its decision on whether to appeal or not on points of law and points of fact.
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The review of the Fuel Service Stations Policy is the best approach to curb the broad interpretation of the policy and to address the lacunae which are hindering the ERA from effectively objecting to applications that prejudice the environment and which grab undeveloped land beyond the development scheme.
The ERA will be taking the lead on this matter to ascertain that sectorial policies such as the Fuel Service Stations Policy do not serve as the back-door approach to circumventing stronger policies and plans that explicitly prohibit development beyond urban areas.
Victor Axiak is chairman of the Environment and Resources Authority and an active researcher in marine biology.