Integrated Environmental Planning for Sustainable Development: The Environment Agency's Role

The Environment Agency is midway through a programme of 'local environment agency plans' for all of England and Wales by the Millennium. To complement them, the Agency has published two overarching plans - one of which is regional and the other sub-regional in scale. 'Thames Environment 21' and 'The North Wessex Plan' deal with the potential impact of development pressures and their consequent implications for the environment. Both give practical expression to the Agency's environmental strategy for the Millennium, which concentrates on issues of direct concern to local planning authorities, e.g. addressing climate change, improving air quality, managing water resources, managing waste and enhancing biodiversity.