Higher Officer: Marine Major Casework - ( Ref : 6823 ) in Newcastle upon Tyne

This position is based at Tyneside House, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

The Role

This is an Operational Higher Officer role delivering and supporting Natural England’s statutory and discretionary advice on major casework and Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) with combined marine and terrestrial elements. The role holder will understand marine planning, licensing and consenting and NE’s role in the NSIP process, and will ideally have experience of working on marine NSIPs. They will provide support to the Northumbria Area Team and Northern North Seas Team responding to statutory and non-statutory consultations. This role will contribute to the production of condition assessment and formal conservation advice packages for our Marine Protected Area (MPA) network.

Key Tasks/Principal Accountabilities

The successful candidate will:

• Work closely with their Senior Responsible Officer to develop and deliver Natural England advice on major casework and NSIPs with a marine component, including but not limited to offshore wind.
• Review and advise on Environmental Impacts Assessments, Habitat Regulations Assessments (including technical supporting information); working with developers to ensure environmental impacts of developments have been fully addressed in order to achieve the best outcomes for the natural environment.
• Provide statutory advice to competent authorities within specified statutory timeframes.
• Respond to post-consent consultations on discharge of Development Consent Order and Marine Licence conditions.
• Provide advice to developers to inform survey and monitoring plans & reports through Natural England’s Discretionary Advice Service (DAS).
• Provide chargeable advice through Natural England’s DAS, to maximise early engagement opportunities to achieve better outcomes for the natural environment.
• Identify any risks associated with the delivery of this work and ensure they are escalated appropriately.
• Support collaborative working between terrestrial and marine colleagues in the Project Teams you support, sharing learning and identifying opportunities for continuous improvement.
• Participate in relevant internal technical networks, showing leadership & sharing best practice with others to support development of strategic approaches to challenges, and promote skills development across the wider team.
• Identify and complete priority marine monitoring (may include field work) and carry out condition assessments.
• Contribute to Conservation Advice as part of our statutory duty and to provide advice on Marine Protected Areas.

Technical Skills and Knowledge

• Degree or equivalent qualification and relevant experience (Essential).
• Detailed knowledge of marine ecology, marine processes and an understanding of the marine biodiversity in UK waters (specifically North Sea) (Essential).
• Knowledge of the main challenges in delivering sustainable development advice in the marine/coastal habitats of the UK marine environment (Desirable).

Work Delivery

• Manage and deliver your work to meet agreed targets and deadlines (Practitioner).
• Apply the relevant methodologies and tools for collecting and collating data / evidence including metadata (Practitioner).

Personal Effectiveness

Share expertise and knowledge with people and networks so that you can develop together (Basic).

• Use clear and appropriate language, communication styles and techniques that engage and influence your audience (Basic).
• Be ambitious, identify and adopt ways to make improvements in your team and your organisation and inspire others to act (Practitioner).
• Make and explain objective decisions which combine your professional judgement and evidence (Practitioner).

Putting People at the Heart of the Environment

• Nurture trusting partnerships and collaborate to achieve pragmatic outcomes that help deliver the organisation’s vision, mission and aims (Practitioner).
• Listen to and understand our diverse partners and customers so that you achieve the best outcomes for them and the organisation you represent (Practitioner).

Creating Resilient Landscapes & Seas

• Use and contribute to the evidence base on environmental and landscape change to support resilient landscapes and seascapes (Practitioner).
• Identify and apply relevant planning and environmental legislation, policies and processes to deliver effective and proportionate evidence-based solutions and advice (Practitioner).
• Identify appropriate solutions for avoidance, mitigation, compensation of environmental impacts and meeting shared outcomes; and identify opportunities for enhancing the natural environment (Practitioner).
• Provide advice on the need for, and scope of, environmental assessments (e.g. Environmental Impact assessment (EIA), Habitats Regulations assessment (HRA) (Practitioner).

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