Post-EIA monitoring and WebTAG objectives: A review of selected road projects in UK.

Abstract: Roads are an important part of the infrastructure of any country, as they facilitate the transportation of goods and people. The UK has got a good road network but has a low motorway density compared to other European countries. The High-ways Agency has a programme to improve the road network, mainly to ease con-gestion. To ensure the sustainability of road projects the UK government has set guidelines and standards that have to be met. These are the criteria used to ap-praise road projects for which EIA is a significant input. This paper seeks to find the connection between the transport appraisal objectives and post-EIA monitor-ing. The study was carried out by reviewing EIS and CEMP documents of three road projects in England. A short questionnaire with open questions was also ad-ministered. The results show that monitoring of impacts associated with the re-spective projects was mainly proposed during the construction phase, and for en-vironmental impacts. Social and economic impacts are generally not monitored during and after construction. Whilst post-EIA monitoring of impacts is seldom carried out, monitoring depends on the type of project, construction involved and the location of the project. More research is required in different kinds of projects, and more needs to be done to enforce ongoing monitoring after the EIA to sup-port the POPE exercise.