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Public Consultation Report Phase 2 Feb-April 2015

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Public Consultation Report Phase 2 Feb-April 2015 Water Services Strategic Plan Public Consultation Report – Phase 2 October 2015 CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................1 1.1 Overview..................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 This Document .......................................................................................................... 1 2 CONSULTATION METHODOLOGY ......................................................2 2.1 Draft Water Services Strategic Plan ........................................................................ 2 2.1.1 Agreement of Scope................................................................................................ 2 2.1.2 Preparation and Consultation of the Plan ............................................................... 2 2.2 Strategic Environmental Assessment and Appropriate Assessment ................. 2 2.2.1 Agreement of Scope................................................................................................ 2 2.2.2 Preparation and Consultation of the SEA Environmental Report and Natura Impact Statement ................................................................................................................ 2 2.3 Public Consultation................................................................................................... 3 2.3.1 Distribution of Documents ....................................................................................... 3 2.3.2 Advertisement of the Consultation .......................................................................... 3 2.3.3 Submission Responses........................................................................................... 3 3 EVALUATION OF RESPONSES TO THE DRAFT WSSP .....................4 3.1 List of Respondents.................................................................................................. 4 3.2 Summary of Submissions and Revisions............................................................... 4 4 SUBMISSIONS FOR THE SEA ENVIRONMENTAL REPORT AND APPROPRIATE ASSESSMENT .................................................................10 5 CONCLUSIONS....................................................................................10 Appendix A: Public Consultation Advertisements and Poster Appendix B: Submissions to the Draft WSSP Consultation Appendix C: Submissions on the SEA Environmental Report and the Appropriate Assessment Appendix D: Additional Submissions in Full ii | Irish Water PC2 Evaluation Report 1 Introduction 1.1 Overview The Water Services Strategic Plan sets out the strategies we need to implement as a country in the short, medium and longer term to ensure the availability of safe drinking water, an environment that is protected from the impacts of wastewater discharges, and efficient modern systems that meet the needs of customers, contribute to economic growth and development, and provide value for money. The document addresses six key themes of customer service, clean safe drinking water, effective treatment of wastewater, a sustainable environment, supporting economic growth and investing for the future. Irish Water (IW) is required to publish a Water Services Strategic Plan (WSSP) under Section 33 of the Water Service (No. 2) Act of 2013 (WSA). The WSSP is required to state the objectives of Irish Water in relation to the provision of water and wastewater services for a 25 year period and the means by which Irish Water proposes to achieve these objectives. Following consultation, the final plan is subject to approval by the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government. The implementation of the plan will be reviewed after a maximum of 5 years as stipulated in the WSA. In line with the SEA Directive (2001/42/EC) and Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC), the WSSP is subject to a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) and an Appropriate Assessment (AA) to provide for a high level of protection of the environment and to promote sustainable development by integrating environmental considerations into the preparation and adoption of the WSSP whilst meeting the provisions of the Directives and transposing regulations. 1.2 This Document This document forms the evaluation report of submissions received during the second round of public consultation on the WSSP (PC2) which ran from the 19th February to the 17th April 2015. This consultation invited statutory bodies, interested parties and the general public to make submissions on the following documents: A draft Water Services Strategic Plan in compliance with Section 33 of the Water Services (No. 2) Act 2013; An Environmental Report for the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) in accordance with the European Communities (Environmental Assessment of Certain Plans and Programmes) of 2004 (as amended); and the Natura Impact Statement in support of the Appropriate Assessment of the plan completed under Regulation 42 of the European Communities (Birds and Natural Habitats) Regulations 2011 and pursuant to Article 6 of the Habitats Directive 92/43/EEC. 1 | Irish Water PC2 Evaluation Report 2 Consultation Methodology The methodology used for this public consultation is described in the paragraphs below. 2.1 Draft Water Services Strategic Plan 2.1.1 Agreement of Scope Section 33(1) of the Water Services No. 2 Act (2013) (WSA) defines the statutory consultees for the preparation of the Water Services Strategic Plan (WSSP) as the Commission for Energy Regulation, the Environmental Protection Agency, each local authority and each regional planning authority. To develop the scope and form of the WSSP, meetings were held with the statutory consultees identified in the WSA (the CER, the EPA, the regional planning authorities and the City and County Managers Association representing local authorities) and with the Department of Environment, Community and Local Government (DECLG). In addition, letters were issued to each local authority and the statutory consultees. Following preparation of the draft scope, an Issues Paper for the WSSP was prepared and published in July 2014. Members of the public were invited to provide feedback to Irish Water during a five week public consultation which ran from July to September 2014. The responses from this consultation were collated and presented within the PC1 evaluation report. This was used to agree the final scope and inform the preparation of the draft WSSP. 2.1.2 Preparation and Consultation of the Plan Following this initial phase of public consultation (PC1), the draft WSSP was prepared between October 2014 and February 2015 with text supported by relevant graphics, photographs and case histories. Six Strategic Objectives were defined addressing the required content of the WSSP as set out in the WSA and a series of strategies were devised to deliver each of these Strategic Objectives. The draft WSSP was then published on the 19th February 2015 for consultation. The methodology used to advertise the consultation is described in Section 2.3 below. 2.2 Strategic Environmental Assessment and Appropriate Assessment 2.2.1 Agreement of Scope For the purpose of developing the scope of the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) for the WSSP, consultation on the scope of the assessment was initially held through a workshop with representatives from the Environmental Authorities specified under the SEA transposing regulations. Issues in relation to the Appropriate Assessment (AA) process for the WSSP were also discussed at this workshop. After this workshop, written submissions were received from the Environmental Authorities. Other interested parties including Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) were also invited by letter to contribute to the initial scoping in writing. The output of the workshop and written submissions informed the preparation of the Draft Scoping Report which was issued for public consultation alongside the WSSP Issues Paper in July 2014. Following this consultation, the scope of the SEA and the framework used in the SEA to assess potential environmental impacts of implementing the WSSP were updated. 2.2.2 Preparation and Consultation of the SEA Environmental Report and Natura Impact Statement The SEA and AA processes were carried out in parallel with the preparation of the Draft WSSP and an SEA Environmental Report (SEA ER) and Natura Impact Statement (NIS) (in relation to the AA process) were prepared. As such, the development of the SEA ER and NIS informed the strategies identified within the draft WSSP through an iterative process. The SEA ER and NIS were then published alongside the draft WSSP on the 19th February 2015. 2 | Irish Water PC2 Evaluation Report 2.3 Public Consultation 2.3.1 Distribution of Documents Statutory and non-statutory consultees and members of the public were invited to provide feedback to Irish Water during an eight week public consultation which ran from 19th February to 17th April 2015. The draft WSSP, SEA ER and NIS documents were printed and sent to each county library for distribution to their local libraries. In addition, copies of the documents were sent to the planning counters in all local authority planning offices. The printed documents were also sent to all statutory consultees and all other interested parties who had taken part in the development of the scope. The documents were also made available for download in English and Irish at the Irish Water website. 2.3.2 Advertisement of the Consultation The
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