Specialist garden centre planning experts Malcolm Scott Consultants has appointed environmental impact assessment (EIA) coordinator and ecologist Dr Holly Smith to the business to oversee all environmental issues on behalf of its client base.

 Holly joins the team from Ecus in Sheffield, where she led the Environmental Impact Assessment team for seven years, obtaining the IEMA EIA Quality Mark for the company and delivering environmental statements for a wide range of developments across the UK.

 Chris Primett, of Malcolm Scott Consultants, said: "The decision to enhance the business' offering with a clear environmental stance is one we've been discussing for some time. Increasingly companies are asked to demonstrate their efforts to preserve and minimise impact on the local environment and while we have done this for a number of years, with ecology being high on the political and social radar at present, and with the natural fit with our client portfolio, we felt Holly would be a huge asset to the team.

"Holly is a highly respected ecologist within the field. With more than 12 years’ professional experience, starting as a consultant ecologist before moving into EIA, she  has a huge amount of insight which will bolster our other services, enabling us to develop detailed environmental statements on behalf of our clients and aid the planning and design process. We're delighted to be able to extend our service provision, and our clients should see a real benefit from us adding this service in-house." he added.

Holly and MSC sister company Harris Lamb have a long-standing history of working together on projects including North Worcestershire Golf Course, whereby Holly coordinated and produced an environmental statement under the IEMA Quality Mark Scheme and acted as client project manager, working with the planning team and client to produce design, and on the  Stoneleigh Park Redevelopment, where Holly again oversaw the environmental statement, acted as client project manager and was retained to work with the Park and HS2 through revising the HS2 detailed design.