One of the reasons that local communities object to major development proposals is very rarely addressed in planning systems. This is the issue of what is the limit of acceptable change in a specific locale. In general, when people protest about a proposal it is because they believe that the amount of change being imposed upon them is unacceptable. Gradual, incremental change is generally more acceptable to communities than sudden, major change, hence the opposition to large projects.

The level of change that specific proposals will bring to a community should be assessed, including in terms of surroundings, amenity, traffic and social change. These impacts should be clearly documented in an impact statement which draws together all of the assessment undertaken for the proposed development, and which undertakes further social impact assessment as necessary. Only larger scale developments would need to be assessed in this way, however locailities which are expected to experience significant incremental change should have an initial assessment of the acceptability of that change undertaken.

The affected community could then be consulted on the basis of whether this change is acceptable or not. This should be an iterative process, that is to say, the proposal would be amended based on the outcomes of the impact assessment, if it were determined to have an unacceptable impact in one or more areas.