Forest Works Supervisor

**Details**:
**Reference number**:

- 289326**Salary**:

- £26,534**Job grade**:

- Administrative Officer- Pay Band 6a**Contract type**:

- Permanent**Business area**:

- FC - Forestry Commission England - East England Forest District based at Santon Downham IP27 0TJ**Type of role**:

- Environment and Sustainability
- Operational Delivery**Working pattern**:

- Full-time**Number of jobs available**:

- 1Contents

Location

About the job

**Benefits**:
Things you need to know

Location
- East England Forest District, Santon Downham, Nr Brandon, Suffolk. IP27 0TJAbout the job

**Job summary**:
**East District Work Supervisor - Thetford**

Do you have the skills and enthusiasm required to join a busy beat team managing the nation’s forests in East Anglia?

**The role**

Forestry England is seeking people keen to develop their forest operations management experience to join our Forestry and Land Management team working across a multi -purpose forest environment at Thetford Beat in East England Forest District (EEFD).

The Work Supervisor assists the Beat Forester to plan and organise tasks and is critical to enabling staff and contractors to achieve establishment, harvesting and maintenance programmes.

**The district**

East England Forest District, covers an area of 35,000 ha 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.

**The beat**

Thetford Forest lies in the heart of East Anglia. The forest is approximately 20,000ha with an annual felling programme of around 80,000tonnes and an establishment programme around 1million trees a year.

We carry out a significant proportion of these programmes with in-house staff, and are committed to developing new recruits through formal apprenticeships and trainee schemes and a broad range of internal technical and professional courses.

Management of Thetford Forest is divided into four beats. Thetford West, North, South and East. Thetford North includes the woods in North Norfolk.

These posts are based at the Santon Downham office near Brandon, Suffolk with a requirement to travel to work in other beat woodlands and on occasion elsewhere in EEFD. Meetings and training events may take place in other parts of the country.

**Job description**:
**Purpose of the Job**

The Beat Team work in a focused, motivated, enthusiastic way to plan and implement economic, social and environmental work programmes and projects that effectively, efficiently and safely meet the Forestry England Strategic Plan aim of “Connecting everyone with the nation’s forests by creating and caring for our forests for people to enjoy, wildlife to flourish and business to grow”.

The main responsibilities of the Work Supervisor are to:

- assist the beat forester in all aspects of the day-to-day management of the beat and in planning, organising and supervising forest operations by staff and contractors to ensure agreed work is delivered safely, effectively and efficiently
- assist the beat forester by taking a focused interest in developing and coaching the operational team it is anticipated that this will come in the form of demonstrative and verbal communication
- accurately collect site measurements and observations and use these in monitoring outcomes, assessing site conditions, updating records and informing decisions
- communicate appropriately with colleagues and all stakeholders including landowners, neighbours, contractors, customers and members of the public

These roles involve a mixture of office work and time spent in the forest. The job is varied and wide ranging, requiring close team working to continually re balance priorities as unplanned situations arise that need dealing with whilst maintaining momentum to deliver planned programmes.

A guide to expected Works Supervisor tasks:

- Promoting a safety-first culture
- Ensuring through site set-up and supervision that all operations comply with safety and environmental legislation and meet the site specification
- Building team spiri