Principal Officer - Landscape Casework

Join us in shaping a future where nature and people thrive. Whether you're drawn to hands-on conservation or playing a vital part behind the scenes, your work at Natural England will support lasting benefits for the environment and society.

Our Role

Natural England is the Government’s adviser for the natural environment and the Nature regulator with a wide range of statutory duties and powers. We provide the evidence, expertise and advice to recover Nature and shape better places for people to live. We do this working through and with others.

Our Priorities

We will focus on the following priorities:

• Drive Nature recovery at a greater scale and faster pace than before by supporting large scale projects and making it easier for landowners to get permissions for Nature positive change.
• Tackle the root causes of Nature’s decline working with Defra partners to ensure cleaner air, clean and plentiful water, healthier soils and rich, productive seas.
• Partner with planners and developers on “high nature; low carbon” houses, energy and transport infrastructure and introduce strategic solutions so development can also protect and restore Nature.
• Support food security and sustainable farming, forestry and fishing through targeted advice and the right mix of public and private finance.
• Shape better places for people to work and live by providing clear evidence and advice to our partners, using spatial plans for Nature as a framework for investment and joined up action.
• Connect communities with Nature and create Nature close to people’s homes, ensuring everyone gains from the health benefits Nature can bring.

Find out more about the work of Natural England at www.gov.uk/government/organisations/natural-england.

The Role

Natural England has a key role to play in the planning and delivery of major infrastructure. We provide advice to planners and developers on “high nature; low carbon” houses, energy and transport infrastructure, and we introduce strategic solutions so development can also protect and restore Nature.

The Major Planning Casework Team is a multi-disciplinary team which works with Area and National teams on complex major developments on land and sea. The team provides advice to maximise environmental outcomes and manage risk from these developments. We work in two ways; we lead Natural England’s inputs to some major planning casework, and we support our Area Teams on major planning casework by providing technical advice and project management expertise.

Our team’s major casework activity uses cost recovery mechanisms to bring in income. Our team helps to set up contracts with applicants using Natural England’s Discretionary Advice Service, NSIP statutory charging and Service Level Agreements (SLAs).

We are looking for a Principal Officer to join our team, to provide landscape planning advice on casework, in line with Natural England’s Planning Standards and ensuring our statutory remit is upheld. The role will involve reviewing and responding to technical landscape impact documents, advising Natural England Area Teams, and liaising with external applicants on their landscape impact assessments. It will regularly involve attending site visits across England, and quality assuring and presenting evidence at hearings.

Key Tasks/Principal Accountabilities

The planning, infrastructure planning and environmental assessment systems are in a period of substantial change so specific responsibilities may develop and change over time. We are looking for a Principal Officer who can maintain a flexible and adaptable attitude and approach. Initial broad work areas are likely to comprise those described below:

• Providing specialist technical advice on impacts to Protected Landscapes from development. This will include providing your expert analysis on developer led LVIA/SLVIAs to inform NE advice and advising developers on their impact assessments directly.
• Providing national oversight of all High Risk High Opportunity cases with potential to harm Protected Landscapes, and proactively engage with Area Teams on the support required.
• Ensuring Natural England’s High Risk High Opportunity pipeline of cases records all the cases it needs to via engagement with Area Teams and the Landscape Planning Network.
• Using your expert judgement, prioritise your engagement on the cases with most risk to Protected Landscapes.
• Managing and Quality Assuring landscape specialist advice commissioned via our planning framework contract.
• Being an expert witness for Natural England at NSIP examinations, Local Plan examinations and Public Inquiries for the highest priority cases, ensuring effective delivery and justification of our advice and positions, and ensuring site visits have informed your advice and judgement.
• Providing effective escalation of landscape planning matters throughout NE’s Sustainable Development work, working with Area Teams and other technical colleagues to identify lessons learnt and opportunities for reforming and improving our approach to landscape casework.
• Understanding Natural England’s role in advising on seascape issues, and triage which cases require this support, providing advice on seascape issues where needed.
• Working across directorates to ensure connectivity with the landscape expertise elsewhere in the organisation.
• Enabling effective partnership working on casework – driving forward our engagement with landscape partnerships and other key stakeholders - working together on the most complex cases.

Benefits

Wherever possible Natural England accommodates requests for both full-time and part-time hours and other flexible working patterns to help employees achieve a good work/life balance and maintain their health and wellbeing.

Natural England provides excellent opportunities for career progression, training and development tailored to your role. From induction to ongoing learning and development, everyone in Natural England is supported to develop their skills and capabilities. Everyone has 10 days to devote to personal learning and development, as well as an additional 3 days to volunteer.

You will have access to Civil Service Pension and benefits arrangements and generous leave allowances (33 day per year pro rata), as well as flexible working, to help you achieve a work-life balance that works for you and us.

You will have access to a range of benefits including discounts on shopping vouchers, cycle to work scheme, and childcare vouchers. You can also join the Civil Service Sport club which offer discounts on a range of sports and leisure opportunities as well as social events.

Natural England is a fantastic place to work, where difference is celebrated.

We’re committed to fairness and equality for all, so you feel valued for who you are and what you do. Our shared values help us work together to benefit the communities we serve. Our thriving employee-led diversity networks support our inclusive culture and contribute to our Diversity Action Plan.

Locations

Natural England is adopting hybrid working – which means our staff work from a flexible range of locations, encompassing home, offices (ours and our partners) and relevant sites. All new staff will be formally linked to one of our 25 offices across England and the expectation is that all new staff will be able to access their local office to be part of the community of staff in their geographical area. Full time staff are expected to attend their associated office for a minimum of one day a week.

Staff members are required to carry out all their duties working in this way and cannot do so from an overseas location at any time. Travel expenses will be paid if work related travel is required but does not apply to travel between home and your associated office.

National team roles can be linked with any Natural England office while Area Team roles will be linked with an office in the relevant geographic area.

View a map of our office locations here.