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Forestry England is an organisation like no other. Our strong values and shared ambition to connect everyone with the nation’s forests underpin all that we do.

North England Forest District is the largest in England, with 130 staff helping care for 61,000 ha of forest and 25,000 ha of open land in Cumbria, County Durham, Lancashire, Gatehead and Northumberland. We operate in some of England’s most remote areas, generating significant economic and environmental benefits, and we are important stakeholders in many regional initiatives.

North England Forest district is also home to 45 Sites of Special Scientific Interest covering over 10,000 ha and is a major contributor to nationally significant biodiversity projects supporting red squirrels, water voles, ospreys, red kites, forest rewilding, limestone woodland and blanket bog restoration.

Our visitor offer and experience is focused on five Forest Centres; Grizedale, Gisburn, Hamsterley, Kielder and Whinlatter, with increasingly popular outlying woodlands at Chopwell, Ennerdale and Rothbury. In total, the nation’s forests in North England District attracts over one million visits per annum.

Covering 2500 hectares, Grizedale Forest, situated to the west of Windermere, is one of the 15 most visited outdoor attractions in the Lake District National Park, with approximately 190,000 visitors per year. Visitors are attracted by the range of activities offered, including walking and cycling trails, four Go Ape courses, bike hire, over 70 artworks, a 100-cover café, gallery spaces and artists studios. The site has an extensive built estate featuring operational buildings, two farms and residential properties.

Based at Grizedale Forest you will work as part of North District’s recreation and communications team to support and co-ordinate recreation delivery and development at Grizedale Forest

You will inspect and maintain the facilities at Grizedale and across other Forestry England sites in South Cumbria by working closely with colleagues both within and outside your immediate team. You will be required to use your own initiative delivering solutions to facility management problems and reacting swiftly to issues to maintain a high-quality visitor experience at Grizedale. You will also engage and supervise both volunteers and contractors where appropriate.

We would expect you to play an active role in managing, promoting and developing recreation facilities and opportunities on site including delivering quality visitor experiences while supporting the site team and maintaining excellent relations with our on-site partners, concessions, neighbours and external partners.

You will support events and permissions (including sporting competitions, filming productions, motorsport events and more) taking place across South Cumbrian Forests to ensure they are delivered safely and cost effectively without impacting operational workings of the forests where possible.

Recreation operations also include supporting our land management team with outlying woodlands across South Cumbria which host informal recreation, including Hardknott, Broughton Moor, Chapel House, Claife and Bessy Bank.

Responsibilities

Key work areas

• Work with the Recreation and Business Manager to co-ordinate and deliver recreation services on a day-to-day basis to ensure the smooth running of the visitor facilities.
• Work alongside the existing recreation ranger manage an inspection regime to ensure the safety of recreation and other facilities and ensure all works are conducted in compliance with Health and Safety policies.
• To lead in managing and supervising volunteers working with the recreation team ensuring they are effectively supervised and have a safe, positive experience in line with our volunteer management processes.
• Lead on site communication between recreation, land management, other Forestry England teams, franchise operations, neighbours, external partners and the community to engender a close working relationship and to improve the customer experience.
• Work with the Recreation and Business Manager and the Visitor Experience Manager to develop the visitor experience across Grizedale with a strong focus on the visitor hub area. Maintain and develop contact with visiting public, providing an information service and responding to accidents and incidents on site.
• Work with the whole recreation team to develop interpretation and engagement with the story of Grizedale Forest, the work that takes place in the forest and the people that make it happen.
• With the existing Recreation Ranger manage the permissions process for events and third party activities, ensuring appropriate internal consultation and charges are applied.
• Work with recreational user groups and community groups to support delivery of Forestry England objectives

This post is 37 hours per week excluding lunch breaks. The duties of the post require a flexible seven day working week to allow for rostering on weekends, public and privilege holidays and evenings (with the exception of Christmas Day and Boxing Day).

You will be expected to work at least one weekend in four as Grizedale duty ranger.

Experience and professional expertise

Essential:

• Experience as a recreation or community ranger or similar public-facing role
• A sound knowledge of recreation facility management
• Experience of developing relationships and working effectively with internal and external partners.
• Competent in the use of IT applications (e.g. MS Word, Excel, Teams)
• Full UK Driving Licence.

Desirable:

• Experience of planning for and leading volunteers and groups
• Experience of delivering and developing visitor welcome and experiences
• Experience of managing contractors in the outdoors
• Experience of managing recreational structures and building maintenance
• Experience of using social media tools to share effective contact and messaging about a business, event or activity.

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Communicating and Influencing
• Working Together
• Changing and Improving
• Managing a Quality Service

• Learning and development tailored to your role
• An environment with flexible working options
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 27%
• 25 days Annual Leave, increasing to 30 days after 5 years service, plus 10.5 Public, Privilege and Additional Holidays

Job contact :

Name :
Holly Holden
Email :
[email protected]

Recruitment team :

Email :
[email protected]