Habitats Regulations Assessment of the Crawley Borough Council Local Plan DRAFT Report to Inform the HRA January 2021 Habitats Regulations Assessment of the Crawley Borough Council Local Plan DRAFT Report to Inform the HRA LC-656 Document Control Box Client Crawley Borough Council Report to inform the Habitats Regulations Assessment of the Crawley Borough Report Title Council Local Plan Draft Status Report to Inform the HRA Filename LC-656_Crawley_Draft HRA Report_Screening Sections_5_130121SC.docx Date January 2021 Author SC Reviewed ND Approved ND Photo: Ashdown Forest by Amanda Slater DRAFT Report to Inform the HRA of the Crawley Borough Council Local Plan January 2021 LC-656_Crawley_Draft HRA Report_Screening Sections_5_130121SC.docx Contents 1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 HRA of the Crawley Local Plan ................................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 The HRA process ........................................................................................................................................................ 2 2 Local Plan ......................................................................................................................................................... 7 2.1 Crawley Local Plan Review ..................................................................................................................................... 7 2.2 Background to the Local Plan development ................................................................................................... 7 2.3 Local Plan policies and allocations ...................................................................................................................... 8 2.4 Previous HRA work .................................................................................................................................................... 8 2.5 Purpose of report ...................................................................................................................................................... 12 3 Methodology ................................................................................................................................................. 13 3.1 HRA Guidance ............................................................................................................................................................ 13 3.2 HRA methodology .................................................................................................................................................... 13 3.3 Stage 1: Screening for likely significant effects ............................................................................................. 13 3.4 What is a Likely Significant Effect? .................................................................................................................... 15 3.5 In-combination effects ........................................................................................................................................... 16 3.6 Case law ....................................................................................................................................................................... 18 3.7 Stage 2: Appropriate Assessment and Integrity Test ................................................................................ 19 3.8 Dealing with uncertainty ...................................................................................................................................... 20 3.9 The Precautionary Principle ................................................................................................................................ 20 4 Scope of the HRA ........................................................................................................................................ 21 4.1 Background ................................................................................................................................................................. 21 4.2 European sites ............................................................................................................................................................ 21 4.3 Identification of European sites ........................................................................................................................... 21 4.4 Threats and pressures ............................................................................................................................................ 25 4.5 Air quality ................................................................................................................................................................... 29 4.6 Hydrology ................................................................................................................................................................... 34 4.7 Habitat fragmentation and loss ......................................................................................................................... 38 4.8 Public access and disturbance ........................................................................................................................... 39 4.9 In-combination screening .................................................................................................................................... 39 5 European sites .............................................................................................................................................. 41 5.1 Ashdown Forest SAC .............................................................................................................................................. 41 5.2 Ashdown Forest SPA ............................................................................................................................................. 43 5.3 Mole Gap to Reigate Escarpment SAC ........................................................................................................... 46 5.4 South West London Waterbodies SPA ........................................................................................................... 52 5.5 South West London Waterbodies Ramsar .................................................................................................... 54 5.6 Arun Valley SAC ...................................................................................................................................................... 54 5.7 Arun Valley SPA ....................................................................................................................................................... 55 5.8 Arun Valley Ramsar ................................................................................................................................................ 56 5.9 The Mens SAC ........................................................................................................................................................... 56 6 Screening ....................................................................................................................................................... 59 6.1 Policy screening ....................................................................................................................................................... 59 6.2 Sites screening ......................................................................................................................................................... 60 7 Appropriate Assessment: Air Quality .................................................................................................. 61 8 Appropriate Assessment: Hydrology ................................................................................................. 62 9 Conclusions ................................................................................................................................................... 63 Appendix A: Europoean Site Conservation Objectives Appendix B: European sites and corresponding SSSI conservation status Appendix C: European sites threats and pressures Appendix D: In-combination Assessment Appendix E: Policy Screening © Lepus Consulting for Crawley Borough Council i DRAFT Report to Inform the HRA of the Crawley Borough Council Local Plan January 2021 LC-656_Crawley_Draft HRA Report_Screening Sections_5_130121SC.docx Appendix F: Allocation screening List of Figures Figure 1.1: Stages in the Habitats Regulations Assessment process. ....................................................................................... 6 Figure 3.1: Outline of steps in stage 1; the whole screening process. .................................................................................... 14 Figure 3.2: Outline of the in-combination pre-screening assessment methodology ........................................................... 17 Figure 4.1: European sites within HRA study area ................................................................................................................... 23 Figure 4.2: Traffic contribution to pollution concentration at different distances from road centre ................................. 31 Figure 4.3: Inflow and outflow traffic data for Crawley – journeys by car and van only ...................................................