West Midlands
The West Midlands region covers West Midlands, Staffordshire, part of Shropshire, part of Worcestershire.
ABOUT OUR GROUP
The regional committee brings together a wide range of different member skill sets. The group is chaired by Jill Crawford from BLM with Chris Hopkins barrister at No.5 Chambers, Richard Hayes, environmental consultant at Ramboll and Anne Richardson-Oakes, lecturer at Birmingham City University joining her on the committee. The group always tries to strike a balance at events between the legal and more practical aspects.
Contact the convenor if you would like to join the group or are interested in serving on the committee.
COMMITTEE
Chair Jill Crawford, BLM - convenor
Chris Hopkins, No5 Chambers
Richard Hayes, Ramboll
Anne Richardson-Oakes, BCU
Given the large number of universities that are based in the region, the group is keen to attract new student members as we believe this is the best way of securing both UKELA and our group’s future. Efforts are also being made to build links with other environmental organisations in our region. We are always keen to attract both new members and existing UKELA members to our events. With HS2 very much on the horizon for most in our region these are interesting times for environmental law in the West Midlands and we look forward to our group continuing to act as an important local forum for UKELA members in future.
Events
The group held a seminar entitled “Down the Drain – Pitfalls and Prevention in Effluent Compliance” on 29 January 2020. Our speakers were Tim Prosser from Ramboll who addressed the industry perspective regarding, amongst other, measures that companies can take to protect themselves and Natascha Gaut Senior Associate and Philip Crosbie Principal Associate, both from Eversheds Sutherland, who looked at the legal perspective around trade effluent consents, compliance and enforcement.
Events have focused on the following:
- Habitats Regulations Assessment
- Environmental Crime
- Fracking (the lead drilling company is based in our region and we were
fortunate enough to have a visiting speaker from the British Geological
Survey);
- Flooding (highly relevant to everyone in our region and particularly those based near the river Severn!);
- Environmental nuisance;
- Contaminated land (we explored the new guidance that has been issued for Category 4 screening levels and had a comparative talk on the regime in Western Australia).