The SoS issued a screening direction in January 2012 in relation to proposals for the demolition of a Victorian Chapel at Klondyke in Sefton on a site which was identified for a major housing redevelopment in a Supplementary Planning Guidance document. The SoS concluded that the demolition proposals did not meet thresholds in regulations to qualify as an EIA development and therefore it did not require and EIA.
Campaign group Save Britain's Heritage subsequently brought a judicial review challenge to that decision. It said that the SoS's failure to consider the demolition as part of the redevelopment proposals amounted to 'salami slicing'; a process under which projects are split up into smaller sub-projects with the effect that each part avoids becoming subject to the requirement for an EIA.
"In my judgment the Secretary of State did not err in treating the project or development in relation to which he was obliged to make a screening direction as being the proposal to demolish the Chapel for which the Council had issued a prior application notice," the judge said.
He said that the proposed demolition of the Chapel could be, and was being, considered on its own merits, even though the Council was planning to proceed with subsequent phases of the redevelopment next year. "The proposed demolition of the Chapel could go ahead irrespective of the future plans for Klondyke Phases 2 and 3. It was a stand alone proposal and not one integrated development," the judge said.
The judge noted that the demolition of the Chapel had not been part of the Council's original plans for the Klondyke redevelopment. The demolition had been decided subsequently because the Chapel was damaged and considered unviable. There was no evidence of "deliberate splitting up of a single project into smaller sections for the purpose of avoiding EIA," the judge said.
