Robert Sheehan Email & Phone Number

Romsey, England, United Kingdom

I am currently leading the Customer and Engagement team for the Solent and South Downs area of the Environment Agency. In my role, I am responsible for a dispersed team of 14 people across three offices. The team is the customer facing part of the organisation, dealing with FOI/EIR requests and support internally and externally with engagement on anything from writing for the public to support on Flood and Coastal Risk management schemes. This role keeps me in touch with almost everything that the Environment Agency is involved in. My day to day involves leadership and direction to the team as well as the associated admin that comes with a team leader role. I also provide technical, coaching and mentor support to those in my team and beyond. Ensuring my team are performing and that their wellbeing is high is paramount to my role.

Romsey, England, United Kingdom

Whilst carrying out my multiple day job roles within the Environment Agency, I have also been and continue to be a Flood Incident Duty Officer. This is to help carry out the EA's responsibilities under the Civil Contingencies Act as a Category 1 responder.My role involves rota'd 24/7 support for flood incident response. Receiving data and information from the public and through our national incident hotline. Assessing the data and information and making tactical and strategic decisions on how best to manage the flood situation.

Romsey, England, United Kingdom

In my role, I am the area lead for all Onshore Oil and Gas projects from a Customers and Engagement perspective. I have an overview of all enquiries, complaints and requests for information that we receive and ensure that these are responded to in a timely manner through our team and with any input from technical teams where required.I am also the lead for a number of Flood and Coastal Risk Management and Environment & Business projects, the most important being the Monktonmead Flood Alleviation Project - where I have specific project experience from previous roles. I am working closely with the project team to ensure that engagement is considered, planned and undertaken at the right times to help achieve positive outcomes for the Environment Agency.I also help to plan and deliver political engagement though the Area Leadership Team with MP's and Defra ministers.During this role I was helping with line management responsibilities until this role became permanent and I stepped into it.

Romsey, England, United Kingdom

Following my short term role in the Thames area, I returned to my national role with the Planning & Regulation team. I was again focussing on the development flood risk planning aspects of our remit and have continued to work with partner organisations such as Defra & DCLG and Highways England.I lead a couple of projects through looking at the possibility of introducing Local Flood Risk Standing Advice and another looking at the training needs of the area teams in relation to development and flood risk planning aspects.I was also leading the review for Living on the Edge and liaising with Defra, Welsh Government and the Association of Drainage Authorities to ensure that if they desire, the document remains a joint publication and meets the needs of each organisation and more importantly, the customers who use it.I continued to lead on technical queries from the Areas relating to development and flood risk planning, planning policy and it's implementation.

Wallingford, England, United Kingdom

During a short term, experimental role in the Thames area of the Environment Agency I was responsible for logging and responding to the Area’s pre-application planning enquiries relating to flood risk. This post was self funded through the cost recovery work I was carrying out. I used my previous experience, from both National and Area roles to provide a timely and efficient service for our customers. It was important that I was able to engage effectively with external partners including developers and Local Planning Authorities and build good relationships.This work was the main focus of this role and as such, I did not have much involvement with the rest of the teams' workload. The exception to this is where I am able to identify opportunities for partnership working/funding, either through financial contributions or works in kind (defences, modelling etc.) that I become aware of at an early stage through the pre-application process.

Romsey, England, United Kingdom

During this role in the Planning & Regulation team, I focussed on the development flood risk planning aspects of the Environment Agency's remit, working with external organisations (Highways England, BRE, Defra & DCLG) on memorandums of understanding, ways of working and research into flood risk management processes/policy. I became the EA's expert on development and flood risk planning, assisting internal teams across the country on complex technical matters relating to development flood risk policy and provided a national perspective on these queries.I provided advice on application of the flood risk aspects of the NPPF, Planning Practice Guidance, Flood Risk Standing Advice, and the technical aspects associated with appropriate flood risk mitigation design in new development. I also updated and amended several technical operational instructions related to development and flood risk planning.

Romsey, England, United Kingdom

My roles within the team included all of the DFR work prior to the creation of the PSO Teams such as responding to planning applications on DPS, including any meetings/phone calls with developers ensuring that new development will be safe, as well as reviewing Flood Defence Consents (now Environmental Permits) from application stage to granting or refusal through consultation with both internal/external partners. I responded to external customer data requests for flood risk information. Taking information from models and creating maps for the public domain.The team are also in charge of starting Flood and Coastal Risk Management projects. As such, I have been involved in several FCRM schemes, acting as the lead point of contact and gaining project management experience.I was also involved in internal projects which changed the way in which the Environment Agency responded to planning applications for flood risk, nationally.

Winchester, England, United Kingdom

My role included responding to planning applications, including any meetings/phone calls with developers ensuring that new development will be safe, as well as reviewing Flood Defence Consents (now Environmental Permits) from application stage to granting or refusal through consultation with both internal/external partners. My knowledge of the planning system, legislation and how the EA ensures that new development will be safe increased greatly in this role, and served as a great base knowledge for future work within the EA.

Winchester, England, United Kingdom

After finishing my Foundation Degree, I worked for a brief period in Ops Tech Support on a temporary contract. Whilst in the team, I continued to arrange all training for the Field Teams. I also took on work including using my GIS skills to create the shapefiles for projects, needed for all of the Ops Delivery Projects that were being planned or sought funding. I was responsible for a project of a trash screen replacement. From writing the business case, to appointing a contractor and overseeing the installation of the screen as project manager. Whilst in this team I gained a more detailed knowledge of project management and CDM regulations, although I did not recieve any formal training in the subjects. My knowledge and understanding of health and safety was greatly improved from being wholly involved in arranging the different training courses that were required by the Field Staff as well as through the project management responsibilities.

Winchester, England, United Kingdom

Roles & responsibilities varied greatly over the two year period. As a requirement of the university course, I worked within all area teams in Flood and Coastal Risk Management (FCRM) for an approximate period of three months each. I gained a detailed understanding of what the different FCRM teams do, as well as being able to identify where teams would be able to work together to achieve better outcomes. I was involved in leading on the production of the Reservoir Operations Procedures documents for two major dams. Producing a detailed report on the flooding that affected Hampshire & IOW in March 2010. Obtaining field survey data and producing a JFlow flood model. Arranging training for Field Staff as well as some basic design work. Responding to planning applications & flood defence consents (Environmental Permits). The knowledge gained was vast & wide ranging, but what I feel was most important was the knowledge of how individual FCRM teams worked, who did what within those teams & what those teams were involved in.