WA environment watchdog 'needs to improve'

WA's Environmental Protection Authority needs to improve, independent reviewers have concluded, after its embarrassing Roe 8 court loss.

WA's environmental watchdog has been criticised in an independent review launched after the Supreme Court overturned its approval of a controversial road project.

The Environmental Protection Authority gave the green light to the first stage of the federal-backed Perth Freight Link, known as Roe 8, but a protest group successfully challenged it in court, prompting the state government to order an independent "health check" of the EPA.

The review team has found the EPA's policies and procedures were too complicated, and the policy framework should be improved.