Beat Forester

About the Job

This post is an exciting opportunity to join the Forestry England team in East England.  As Beat Forester, you will oversee a small team responsible for managing the nations forests in the Chilterns beat.

About Us

East England Forest District, covers an area of 35,000 hectares from North Norfolk to Brighton; including Thetford Forest and the outlying beats of Sandlings, Kent, East Sussex, Chilterns and Thames Chase Community Forest. The District has a varied landholding including the largest lowland pine forest in England at Thetford, community woodland on the outskirts of London at Thames Chase, and a range of mixed woodland, many of which are on sites of Ancient Woodland.

There are numerous sites of conservation interest designated across the District, including Special Protection Areas to conserve the breeding habitat for the Woodlark and Nightjar, Special Areas of Conservation, Sites of Specific Scientific Interest, Areas of Outstanding National Beauty, Ancient Semi-Natural Woodland, County Wildlife Sites and Scheduled Monuments.

The District offers outdoor recreation, leisure and wellbeing activities for hundreds of thousands of people each year at its recreation centres. Forestry England’s whole freehold estate is dedicated for public access on foot, with numerous small carparks and informal access points.

This post is based at the Chilterns office near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire with a requirement to travel to work in other beat woodlands and on occasion elsewhere in East Forest District.  Meetings and training events may take place in other parts of the country.

Job Description

The main areas of responsibility are to:

• Provide leadership to beat team, focusing on their development needs to support the delivery Forestry & Land Management work programmes and responsibilities.
• Agree, plan, manage and monitor beat economic, social and environmental programmes and projects to achieve District Business plan and Forestry England’s objectives.
• Manage contracts to deliver forest management and timber harvesting objectives, whilst meeting all relevant guidelines and legislation.
• Undertake procurement, contract management, planning, implementation and monitoring of budgets following all relevant guidelines.
• Communicate effectively with colleagues and all stakeholders including landowners, neighbours, contractors, customers and members of the public.
• Work collaboratively with colleagues across the District and wider organisation.
• Monitor and ensure that high standards of health, safety & wellbeing are implemented both within your team and by contractors, ensuring compliance with relevant legislation and guidance.

This is an operational post, working 44 hours per week. The duties of the post require you to be on call at times, and to work a flexible working week.

Responsibilities

You will need personal resilience, and a deep commitment to achieving results with a small beat team.

Your skills, interests and experience will reflect the responsibilities of the role in delivering forest operations and a wide range of land management programmes and projects.

You will be interested in developing your existing technical skills and experience further and be willing to take on new and different tasks.

Person Specification

Essential Professional and Technical Experience:

• A degree or HND in Forestry or significant equivalent experience in forestry or land management.
• Experience of planning, managing and supervising forestry operations and a good understanding of health and safety in forestry.
• Experience of leading a team and providing support to staff.
• A sound understanding of and experience in contract management.
• Competence in the use of MS Office applications.

Please clearly demonstrate how the above applies to you throughout your application. Failure to do so will mean that your application is automatically sifted out.

Desirable Professional and Technical Experience:

• Competence and experience in the use of Forester GIS.
• Membership of the Institute of Chartered Foresters (ICF) or working towards membership.

For full job details and how to apply.