Associate - Planning & Environmental

Job Title: Planning & Environmental Associate

Ready to take your career to the next level?

We're one of the UK's most forward-thinking law firms, built on a foundation of innovation, collaboration, and ambition. Join us, and let's shape the future together.

• We are in a period of exclusive direct sourcing for this role and are not currently accepting applications from recruitment agencies.
  
  

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The role in 60 seconds

• Role: Planning & Environmental Associate
• Team: Planning & Environmental
• Locations: Bristol, Exeter or Southampton
• Working Pattern: Full-time or part-time
  
  

Why this role matters: This is a unique opportunity to contribute to the growth of our Planning & Environment team which is ranked in the Legal 500. You can expect to work on large-scale projects, ranging from commercial and residential developments to significant infrastructure and regeneration schemes for a range of national and regional clients.

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What you'll do

In this role, you'll:

• Advise our clients on planning permission applications, negotiate planning and infrastructure agreements, and provide commercially focused advice on securing and implementing planning permissions.
• Work on large scale development consent orders for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects
• Support our transactional property practice, acting for both private and public sector clients
  
  

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What we're looking for

We're looking for a collaborative and driven professional who will thrive working within the Planning & Environment team and across the firm more broadly, bringing:

• Experience of planning law through a planning seat or through post-qualification experience; preferably with additional experience in either development, energy-related matters or environmental but not essential
• An ability to forge relationships with clients, offering advice that aligns with their commercial and legal objectives
• A shared passion for innovation, collaboration - achieving great things together
  
  

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Join a seriously ambitious firm

At Foot Anstey, we're committed to making a difference for our people, our clients, and society. Here's what makes us stand out:

• An ambitious growth strategy that opens opportunities for our people to make their mark.
• A client base that spans household names, thriving startups, and ambitious enterprises.
• A culture built on our values of being refreshingly human, entrepreneurial, inclusive and collaborative.
• A strong focus on being a responsible business with a commitment to sustainability and giving back to our communities.
• Comprehensive professional development and training – whatever your role and level we have training that will support you to achieve your goals.
  
  

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Progressive benefits tailored to you

We believe our people are our greatest asset. That's why we offer a comprehensive benefits package designed to support your professional growth and personal wellbeing, including:

• Competitive salary and performance-linked bonus.
• Enhanced parental leave policies.
• Private healthcare and wellbeing initiatives (e.g., mental health support, gym memberships).
• A modern, flexible working environment.
  
  

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Ready to apply?

• Hit the "Apply Now" button.
• Send us your CV and a quick note on why this role is perfect for you.
• Our team will review your application and be in touch, whatever the outcome.
• Invited for interview?
• With a straightforward process typically involving two interviews, our talent acquisition team will guide you through every step, ensuring you feel confident and prepared to show us what you can do.
• We're here to support your individual needs. If you require any adaptations or adjustments, we're more than happy to accommodate these. Before your interview, we'll contact you to discuss the themes we'll cover and answer any questions you might have.
• If you'd like to visit our offices ahead of time or need any further information, just let us know
  
  

Let's make your next career move the start of something extraordinary.

Successful applicants will be required to complete a pre-employment screening process which includes a financial integrity check and a DBS check. If you wish to discuss any issues or questions in connection with this, please do speak in confidence with a member of the Talent Acquisition Team. Contact us at [email protected] and we will come back to you as soon as we can.

Our offer to you

In return for your efforts, you can expect scope for personal as well as professional development. We encourage people to engage with our popular and well supported coaching and mentoring programmes, which connect you to people right across the firm and at every level. We create space for mental and physical wellbeing with our weekly Lifestyle Hour, along with market leading family friendly policies, including a fertility support package, health cash plan, 28 days annual leave, a day off for your birthday, and a sabbatical you can take every 5 years. You can also buy holiday and manage your benefits flexibly using our sophisticated portal to configure your total reward offer according to what you value most. As part of this, you can make ongoing or one-off donations to our charitable foundation and access our CSR programme where you can engage with community-based initiatives (as a team, or individually) twice a year, to give something back where you feel it matters.

Why Foot Anstey?

As one of the UK's fastest growing law firms, Foot Anstey believes in helping our clients and people achieve their ambitions, unlocking new and exciting opportunities. Our team of business and legal advisors are motivated by understanding clients' goals and collaborating with them and other advisers to deliver solutions.  By becoming our clients' most trusted advisor, we are enabling them to achieve their ambitions. How we do it is just as important as what we do. Our values define the way we act with our clients and one another every day, and because of these we think our culture and environment sets us apart.

Over our history we've grown from a high-street firm to a significant regional and national player working with leading brands and individuals predominantly across six key sectors: Private Equity, Retail & Consumer, Energy & Infrastructure, Islamic Finance, Developers and Private Wealth. Our strategy of gaining market share through meeting clients' needs, investing in and developing high quality talent and using technology and innovation to enhance our services has led to significant growth. We now operate from seven locations: Truro, Plymouth, Exeter, Taunton, Bristol, Southampton and London.

Our people are central to our success, in every part of the business. We actively support our employees to achieve their aspirations through offering meaningful careers with balanced rewards, which have been carefully designed to focus on personal wellbeing. We offer continual opportunities for support and professional development through our Business Skills Academy and Digital Skills Academy, and believe in empowering each other to achieve and strive to create a progressive and inclusive working environment. Being forward-thinking, we are open to discussing flexible working patterns for all of our vacancies, with over 40% of our existing employees having a permanent flexible working pattern. In addition, our impressive suite of flexible benefits will enable you to prioritise what matters most to you. 

Creating a diverse and inclusive workplace is integral to delivering our strategy, and we were delighted to be awarded the National Equality Standard for a second time in 2021.  We consider this to be right at the heart of our priorities and goes way beyond our policies – it's something we consider across everything we do, from the make-up of our client teams, encouraging staff to reach their potential, through to our leadership. We aim to support our clients and our people to achieve their goals, regardless of background, gender, race, beliefs, sexuality or other non-work related factors. We champion aspiration and encourage it in everyone that works with us.  As such we actively encourage applications from all suitably qualified people, regardless of any characteristics protected by law. If you apply for this role you may be encouraged to answer our diversity and social mobility monitoring questions, so please be reassured that any answers you provide will remain entirely anonymous and confidential and will in no way impact your application.

Foot Anstey. Powering Your Ambition.