Nationally significant infrastructure projects: pre-application advice on environmental impact assessment

Publication Year

2026

Document Status

Current

Abstract

Provides advice on elements of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process during the pre-application stage of a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP). Covers: legislation, purpose of the EIA, EIA in the NSIP process, notification of the EIA consultation bodies, EIA scoping, submission of screening and scoping requests, advance notice and Geographical Information System (GIS) shapefile, engagement and/or consultation during the pre-application stage, environmental statements and information published on the National Infrastructure Planning website.

Document History

Supersedes: Advice Note 7: Nationally significant infrastructure projects - advice note seven: Environmental Impact Assessment: process, preliminary environmental information and environmental statements. Version 7 (PINS, 2020) and Advice Note 9: Using the Rochdale envelope - Rochdale envelope. Version 3 (PINS, 2018). Sourced from: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/nationally-significant-infrastructure-projects-pre-application-advice-on-environmental-impact-assessment and converted to pdf. Whilst we endeavour to capture all updates it is subject to receiving alerts from the publisher and there may be formatting or punctuation changes applied to the html version that do not affect the text. Document type: guidance. First published: 27 July 2026.

Publisher Information