YOUGHAL EOCHAILL Development Plan 2009-2015 VOLUME lll Strategic Environmental Assessment Youghal Town Council February 2009 Youghal Town Development Plan 2009 – 2015 SEA Environmental Report TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 NON -TECHNICAL SUMMARY ............................................................................................. 4 BIODIVERSITY , F LORA AND FAUNA ............................................................................................... 4 HUMAN HEALTH (A IR AND NOISE )................................................................................................. 5 SOIL AND GEOLOGY (I NCLUDING MINERALS ) ................................................................................. 5 WATER ................................................................................................................................... 5 TRANSPORTATION ........................................................................................................................ 5 WATER SUPPLY AND WASTEWATER .............................................................................................. 6 CULTURAL HERITAGE ................................................................................................................... 6 LANDSCAPE ................................................................................................................................. 6 2 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 10 2.1 SEA B ACKGROUND AND METHODOLOGY ....................................................................... 11 2.2 SCREENING ................................................................................................................... 11 2.3 SCOPING ....................................................................................................................... 11 2.4 ENVIRONMENTAL REPORT .............................................................................................. 12 3 RELATED PLANS ........................................................................................................... 13 4 L OCAL ENVIRONMENTAL BASELINES .................................................................................... 25 4.1 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 25 4.2 BIODIVERSITY , F LORA AND FAUNA ................................................................................. 26 4.3 POPULATION ................................................................................................................. 35 4.4 HUMAN HEALTH (A IR AND NOISE ) .................................................................................. 38 4.5 SOIL AND GEOLOGY (INCLUDING MINERA LS)................................................................... 42 4.6 WATER ........................................................................................................................ 47 4.7 TRANSPORTATION ......................................................................................................... 55 4.8 WATER SUPPLY AND WASTEWATER ........................................................................ 60 4.9 CULTURAL HERITAGE .................................................................................................... 66 4.10 LANDSCAPE .................................................................................................................. 77 5 A SSESSMENT OF ALTERNATIVES ........................................................................................... 80 6 SUSTAINABILITY CRITERIA .................................................................................................... 84 7 LIKELY SIGNIFICANT ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS ................................................................... 98 8 M ITIGATION ........................................................................................................................ 102 8.1 B IODIVERSITY , F LORA AND FAUNA ...................................................................................... 102 8.2 P OPULATION ...................................................................................................................... 102 8.3 H UMAN HEALTH (N OISE AND AIR ) ....................................................................................... 103 8.4 S OIL AND GEOLOGY ........................................................................................................... 103 8.5 W ATER .............................................................................................................................. 103 8.6 T RANSPORTATION .............................................................................................................. 104 8.7 W ATER SUPPLY AND WASTEWATER ................................................................................... 104 1 Version 1 Youghal Town Development Plan 2009 – 2015 SEA Environmental Report 8.8 F LOODING .......................................................................................................................... 104 8.9 C ULTURAL HERITAGE ......................................................................................................... 104 8.10 L ANDSCAPING .................................................................................................................. 104 9 MONITORING .................................................................................................................. 106 APPENDIX 1 A PPROPRIATE ASSESSMENT PROCESS ................................................................... 108 APPENDIX 2 NPWS S ITE SYNOPSES ......................................................................................... 109 APPENDIX 3 P ROTECTED MAMMAL SPECIES ............................................................................... 116 APPENDIX 4 S HORE ANGLING AND BAIT COLLECTION AREAS ...................................................... 118 LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 1: Y OUGHAL TOWN COUNCIL AREA ............................................................................... 10 FIGURE 2: Y OUGHAL TOWN AND LOCAL DESIGNATED AREAS ........................................................ 28 FIGURE 3: A IR QUALITY IN IRELAND 2005 ................................................................................ 39 FIGURE 4: EPA R OCK TYPES FOR YOUGHAL TOWN COUNCIL ................................................... 42 FIGURE 5: B EDROCK GEOLOGY EAST CORK AND WATERFORD ................................................. 43 FIGURE 6: EPA S UBSOILS IN YOUGHAL AREA .......................................................................... 44 FIGURE 7: EPA G ROUNDWATER VULNERABILITY YOUGHAL TOWN COUNCIL AREA .................. 45 FIGURE 8: EPA 2007 R IVERS AND SURFACE WATER QUALITY IN YOUGHAL .............................. 48 FIGURE 9: NUTRIENT SENSITIVE WATERS – W ESTERN RBD ..................................................... 49 FIGURE 10: O NE WAY TRAFFIC OF THE SURROUNDING ROAD NETWORK .................................. 56 FIGURE 11: F LOOD HAZARDS IN YOUGHAL ............................................................................... 62 LIST OF TABLES TABLE 1: C RITERIA USED IN ASSESSING THE ECOLOGICAL IMPORTANCE OF ECOLOGICAL FEATURES TABLE 2: S UMMARY DETAILS OF THE BLACK RIVER C SAC / SPA TABLE 3: Q UALIFYING INTERESTS OF THE BLACKWATER RIVER C SAC TABLE 4: P OPULATION CHANGE TABLE 5: A GE COHORT OF THE POPULATION TABLE 6: W ASTE AND IIPC L ICENSED SITES AND WFD P RESSURES IN YOUGHAL TABLE 7: W ATERBIRDS OCCURRING IN SIGNIFICANT CONCENTRATIONS AT THE BLACKWATER ESTUARY BETWEEN 1994/95 AND 2000/01 (S OURCE BWI). TABLE 8: M EANS OF TRAVEL : 2002 T RAFFIC PATTERN TO WORK IN YOUGHAL TABLE 9: D ISTANCE TRAVELED TO WORK IN YOUGHAL TABLE 10: A RCHAEOLOGICAL SITES AND MONUMENTS TABLE 11: R ECORDED MONUMENTS TABLE 12: E NVIRONMENTAL MONITORING OF THE YOUGHAL TOWN DEVELOPMENT PLAN 2009 - 2015 2 Version 1 Youghal Town Development Plan 2009 – 2015 SEA Environmental Report 3 Version 1 Youghal Town Development Plan 2009 – 2015 SEA Environmental Report 1 NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY 1.1 Background The EU Directive on SEA requires the carrying out of an environmental assessment of plans and programmes which are likely to have significant environmental effects and which set the framework for future development consent of projects which are subject to EIA or where an assessment is necessary due to the likely effect on sites governed by the Habitats Directive (Directive 92/43/EEC). Therefore this document reports on the environmental assessment, which was carried out on the Youghal Town Development Plan 2009 - 2015. The report describes the existing baseline environment in the Youghal Town Council area and the scoping exercise carried out. It also looks at the relationship between the proposed plan with other plans and policies and assesses the impact of its objectives and policies and proposes mitigation and monitoring measures. 1.2 Youghal Town Development Plan 2009 – 2015 The creation of this new Development Plan is expected to result in a change of land use in the future and subsequent developments have the potential to impact on the Youghal Town Council area through a number of different criteria such as biodiversity, Population, Human Health, Soils, Surface Water & Wastewater, Traffic & Transport, Waste Management, Cultural Heritage and Landscape & Visual. Therefore this SEA was undertaken in order to outline any potential significant impacts and