Freeths LLP recruits Richard Broadbent - Former Head of Legal Services at Natural England

We are delighted to announce that Richard Broadbent, Solicitor and former Head of Legal Services at Natural England, will be joining Freeths' Environmental Law Team on 31 January 2022.

Richard will be a huge asset to Freeths' Environmental Law team, particularly in further strengthening our already market-leading, national “natural environmental law” practice (covering topics such as protected species licensing, protected habitats assessments, protected habitat designations, Biodiversity Net Gain, water resource regulation, environmental impact assessment).He will be available to advise both existing and new clients in all aspects of natural environmental law, whether infrastructure or housing developers, mineral operators, planning authorities, other public sector organisations and charities. He will have particular insights into the workings of Natural England. He will also help develop and deliver our popular environmental law training courses. Richard is joining Freeths as a Legal Director with our Sheffield Environmental Law Team but will be based out of our Bristol office, thanks to Freeths' new agile working policy. Richard has been at Natural England since 2010 and has been the Head of Legal Services since 2017. Richard has recently been leading on Natural England's litigation and enforcement cases and providing advice to Natural England's teams on the emergence of the Environment Act 2021. Richard has worked on a number of high-profile nationally significant infrastructure, planning, and species licencing cases. These include nuclear power stations, offshore windfarms, port developments and HS2.Richard's contact details are (from 31 January 2022)Richard BroadbentDirectorrichard.broadbent@freeths.co.uk

For further information on our team and our latest environmental law bulletins, please see the following links: Penny Simpson website profile Environmental bulletins