Jason joined Heatons in 2023 and brought with him over 25 years of experience in the field of environmental permitting. We thought this would be the perfect opportunity to introduce Jason and also tell you a little more about him.
Can you describe your day-to-day role
It’s quite difficult to describe an average day but generally I spend a lot of time working with development projects that includes site visits, pre-application discussions with the Environment Agency and producing quotes. There is such a wide scope of work here at Heatons and we cover the whole country, and we are on hand to help clients in any industry that requires planning or permitting support.
How did your career in permitting begin?
Many, many years ago I started working for Biffa, a large national waste management company. My job then was to assess waste to see whether they were acceptable to be able to safely go into landfill.
Very soon people started to talk about the Landfill Directive, which was then a looming EU initiative to standardise landfill practices across Europe. The UK decided to implement the directive that operators needed to apply for, what was then, a very new system of permitting called “Environmental Permitting”. A lot of the Landfill Directive requirements revolved around assessment of waste, and this was my speciality so slowly I developed a deeper knowledge around the world of permitting. Biffa, being a very large waste management company was first in the queue for the permitting process. To be honest, neither Biffa nor the Environment Agency really knew what these new permits would look like, so our first four applications ended up in two co-joined planning appeals. During these appeals we sat down and wrote the skeleton of what would eventually form the basis of all permits.
Later in the re-permitting process I became specialised in landfill gas utilisation permitting. By the end of the process, we had somewhere in the region of 110MW of electricity generation permitted. From there, I got involved more and more with energy from waste and I headed the permitting process for several large energy projects from waste plants, including the EfW plant at Shepshed which has recently become operational.
When does a client know when they need a permit?
That’s tricky question. Generally, you need an environmental permit if you operate any sort of industrial facility that produces potentially harmful substances, for example a landfill site, large livestock operations, food factories, petrol stations, waste operations, or combustion plants such as a waste incineration plant.
Smaller operations of these types can operate under exemptions from environmental permitting, but these are due to be reviewed, re-written and in some cases, removed, so many operations that have previously been exempt may well need environmental permits very soon.
What kind of projects do you get involved in?
The nice thing about working for Heatons is the variety of projects and clients. I come from a waste management background, but I have been involved in jobs ranging from the food industry to fuel storage and even fishing lakes.
What do you enjoy the most about the projects you get involved in at Heatons?
It’s nice to get involved with new industries and my skills are surprisingly transferrable. It’s also nice to meet the people from these industries. It is very different from doing internal work within a large company. It is much more entertaining.
Does your role often involve other people in the Heatons team?
Yes it does. To some extent, the whole idea of Heatons extending into the world of Environmental Permitting is because a lot of the work that you needed to get planning permission is very similar to the work that you need to do to get an environmental permit. By combining work on planning and permitting, we save clients a lot double handling, paperwork and money.
What do you enjoy doing outside of work?
I love swimming but my recent re-location to Heatons in Derby has put a bit of a spanner in that for now. I need to find a new local pool. I love walking and cycling but I’m not a serious walker or cyclist, most of my outings involve visiting a nice pub.