South West Scotland Renewables Connection Project Environmental Statement The Environmental Impact Assessment As required by the Electricity Works (Environmental Impact Assessment) (Scotland) Regulations 2000, an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) has been carried out for each of the connections comprising the SWS Project. The EIA has been undertaken by Land Use Consultants (LUC) and associated specialist consultants, in accordance with Government regulations, policy and good practice. The EIA culminated in the production of an Environmental Statement (ES). The ES includes a description of how the work was undertaken and any assumptions made during the assessment process. It also presents the results of the assessment of likely effects on the environment, outlines proposed mitigation measures to avoid, reduce and offset identified significant effects and reports on the likely ‘residual’ effects following adoption of the mitigation measures to which SPT is committed to implementing. The ES also includes a Non-Technical Summary which summaries the findings and conclusions of the ES in non-technical language. The Scottish Government and its consultees were consulted on the scope of the EIA. On the basis of the responses to this consultation, and in accordance with the EIA Regulations, a number of topic areas were ‘scoped out’ of the EIA as no significant effects were anticipated, and these have been addressed only briefly in the ES. These topics include physical effects (electric and magnetic fields and operational noise), air quality and climate, peat stability, coal resources, agriculture, aviation and defence and existing services. Following this scoping exercise, and informed by the preliminary findings of the environmental survey work, it was decided that the EIA should examine the effects of the SWS Project associated with the following topic areas in detail: landscape visual amenity hydrology, hydrogeology and water resources ecology ornithology cultural heritage traffic and transport felling and construction noise forestry social and economic effects. The ES comprises three volumes: Volume 1: Main Text Volume 2: Technical Annexes Volume 3: Figures The ES was submitted to the Scottish Government on 18 February 2009 to accompany the individual applications for each Part (A, B, C, D1, D2, D3 and D4) of the SWS Project. Parts A, B, C and D2 were consented between December 2012 and November 2014. ES Structure Diagram ES Structure Diagram Volume 1: Main Text Volume 1: Main Text (incl. Non-Technical Summary) Volume 2: Technical Annexes Volume 2: Technical Annexes Volume 3: Figures Volume Three Figure List 01: Introduction Figures 04: The Routeing Process Figure 05: The Environmental Impact Assessment Figures 06: Development Description Figures 07: Felling-Construction Figures 08: Planning Policy Context Figure 09: Landscape Effects Figures 10: Visual Amenity Figures 11: Hydrology Figures 12: Ecology Figures 13: Ornithology Figures 14: Cultural Heritage Figures 15: Traffic and Transport Figures 16: Noise Figure 17: Forestry Figures 18: Social and Economic Effects Figure 19: Summary Figures