An Environment Effects Statement (EES) is Victoria’s most comprehensive and transparent planning and environmental assessment process.

The EES for North East Link tunnels, the M80 Ring Road Completion and Eastern Freeway Upgrades was released for public comment in April 2019.

The EES:

• describes the existing environment, identifies potential positive and negative effects during construction and operation and proposes ways to avoid, minimise, offset or manage any significant effects
• assessed impacts across 18 topics including traffic and transport, air quality, noise, community and businesses
• took more than 1 year to prepare and included more than 10,000 pages of technical reports
• was informed by more than 2000 pieces of community feedback to help reduce impacts on people and the environment
• was exhibited for 40 days – 10 days longer than the minimum required to give people time to read the EES and make submissions to an independent Inquiry and Advisory Committee
• received more than 870 submissions
• took around 7 months to be reviewed and assessed, including through a public hearing that ran for 36 days
• helped set 110 requirements the project must meet for design, construction and once it opens to traffic.