Applicants for planning permission for certain types of major developments are now required to submit an Environmental Impact Statement (E.I.S) with the application.
An E.I.S. must also be prepared for projects which are likely to have significant effects on the environment including, marine developments (e.g. piers, harbour development, marina development, aquaculture installations and offshore structures) in addition to the marine element of the devlopment likely impacts on the foreshore must also be included in an EIS. An Environmental Impact Statement must also be prepared in respect of certain large scale developments carried out by or on behalf of County Councils.

MERC Consultants provide EIS services to the public and private sector for marine and terrestrial developments, e.g. aquaculture operations, fish processing installations, harbour and marine developments, coastal protection works, and marine dredging/disposal operations.  These services include scoping studies and data/literature reviews; terrestrial, intertidal and subtidal (diver, photo, video, grab, dredge) surveys; water quality sampling; infaunal and epifaunal analysis; particle size analysis; impact assessment and report writing.  In addition to our in-house expertise, we can draw on a number of experts in specialist areas (e.g. birds, terrestrial ecology).