This is an exciting opportunity to join Forestry England, to lead the planning and delivery of our visitor services and people engagement activities in the west and south-west of England.  The Head of Recreation & Engagement is a critically important member of West District's senior leadership team and is responsible for the leadership of the visitor services, community and engagement teams.  The post-holder has lead responsibility for both expanding our visitor services business, and improving efficiency in service delivery whilst ensuring our visitors enjoy high quality experiences in our woods and forests, connecting with the natural world and improving health outcomes.  The role also leads on determining and delivering our communication strategy, both internally and externally as we seek to tell our story, the story of sustainable forestry, as we tackle the twin challenges of climate change and the biodiversity crisis.  The Head of Recreation and Engagement has shared responsibility for promoting a safety first culture across our direct team as well as our much wider network of contractors, partners and volunteers.  The post-holder will lead on the subject of visitor safety, ensuring robust and effective systems are in place for the safety of everyone, and that emergency plans are in place and effective.

West Forest District is responsible for the sustainable management of over 37,500ha of woods, forests and other land in the west and south-west of England.  The district's woods are diverse and geographically dispersed from Shropshire in the north to Wiltshire in the east and Cornwall in the far south-west.  Our primary visitor destinations are our Forest Centres: 

• Cardinham Woods (Bodmin, Cornwall)
• Haldon Forest Park (Exeter, Devon)
• Forest of Dean (Coleford, Gloucestershire)
• The Wyre Forest (Bewdley, Worcestershire), and
• Haughmond Hill (Shrewsbury, Shropshire). 

Whilst our visitor services are focused on our Forest Centres, the majority of our woods and forests are open to public access on foot, by bike and horse-back.  We host thousands of events each year through our permissions system, from regular saturday morning Parkruns to annual motor sport events, as well as more commercial activities such as filming.  Forestry England woods are for People, for Wildlife, for Timber and the Economy.  

The Head of Recreation and Engagement will directly line manage the Operations Manager for Recreation, the Operations Manager for Engagement and the three Area Managers (south-west, Dean, and north).

The Head of Recreation and Engagement is a key member of the district's senior leadership team.  This senior role is responsible for the planning, implementation and monitoring or our visitor services (recreation) and engagement activities.  Planning in this context covers:

• Strategic planning - supporting each Forest Centre manager and their team to develop long and medium term plans for their sites in tandem with the organisation's strategic direction, as set out in 'Growing the Future', Forestry England's 5-year plan.
• Encourage review and renewal of the Forest Centre Business Plans each year to encompass change and highlight short term deliverables that help us achieve our vision and goals in locally relevant ways.
• Engage with the annual review and revision of the district's communication plan to ensure we are using our marketing and communications resources efficiently to both market our Forest Centres, and tell our story, the story of sustainable forestry and our role in tackling climate change and the biodiversity crisis.
• Drawing together of, and getting agreement on, and then communication of the business plan, and revision of the long-term financial plans on an annual basis.
• A key [one-off] deliverable is the drawing together of a recreation strategy for the Forest of Dean evolved from the 'Our Shared Forest' umbrella management plan that was itself drawn together through extensive stakeholder engagement and consultation in 2019.

Monitoring of our business, understanding how the business is operating and where improvements can / need to be made is an essential part of the role.  This is both financial monitoring, monitoring in-year spend against agreed plans and projects and monitoring income - and taking corrective action when / where necessary.   Monitoring of health and safety, having safe systems of work, and a proactive approach to a safety first culture is also a key role for this post.  Accident (and near-miss) investigation, understand and act upon learning from accident (and near-miss) investigations is very important across our whole business, not least in respect to member of public accidents, liability claims and safeguarding matters.

The Head of Recreation & Engagement is an important leadership role, and will directly line manage the Operations Manager - Recreation, Operations Manager - Engagement, and the three Area Managers.  The wider team extends to some 40 people, brigaded across the 5 Forest Centre teams, the Marketing & Communications team, and learning / community team.  The Area Managers are new roles that support our wider Forestry delivery and line manage the beat foresters (who are part of the Forestry & Land Management team), this hybrid working is intended to provide improved business efficiencies whilst supporting greater integration between our forestry delivery and visitor services / engagement delivery. The post holder will champion exemplary approaches to people management, fostering a learning culture whilst also ensuring systems and processes are in place, and understood, for effective business controls.

The Head of Recreation and Engagement will have significant directly relevant experience in the outdoor leisure or environmental sectors.

The post-holder will have demonstrated significant experience in leading multi-disciplinary teams towards delivering unified goals.

The post-holder will demonstrate a commitment to maintaining and improving approaches to health and safety, environmental protection, accident investigation and embedding learning from such investigations.

The post-holder will have strong communication and coaching skills.

The post-holder will have experience in stakeholder engagement and managing difficult or contentious issues in a positive way.

The post-holder will be educated to degree level.

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.

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

• Communicating and Influencing
• Making Effective Decisions
• 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%

Job contact :

• Name : Adam Drew
• Email : [email protected]

Recruitment team

• Email : [email protected]