Jobs

Thanks for your interest in joining the Forest of Marston Vale.

We're a charity whose mission is to plant trees and manage woodlands to make life better for people and wildlife in the Marston Vale, 61sq miles between Bedford and Milton Keynes. Since the early 1990’s, we’ve transformed the landscape and made the Marston Vale a thriving place to live, work and play. We’ve already planted around 2 million trees, increasing tree cover from 3% to 15% - with your help we want to plant 5 million more trees, and achieve tree cover of 30%. Find out more about who we are.

Would you like to join our team? Discover career opportunities at our Community Forest below:

Woodland Creation Officer (£24,000 - £34,000)

The Forest of Marston Vale is a forest in the making; covering an area of 61 square miles between Bedford and Milton Keynes, it’s one of England’s Community Forests which together form the country’s largest environmental regeneration initiative. The Forest of Marston Vale Trust is the charity creating the Forest of Marston Vale. Since the early 1990’s, we’ve been planting trees to transform the once-degraded landscape and make the Marston Vale a thriving place to live, work and play.

A core target for creating the Forest is increasing tree cover to 30% – a ten-fold increase from the early 1990’s – as a means to transform the social, economic and environmental prospects of the area. The Forest of Marston Vale Trust, working with local communities, landowners and partners, has already increased tree cover to over 15% – a truly impressive achievement – and we’re looking to build upon this success in the next phase of creating the Forest.

We’re looking for an enthusiastic, driven and confident individual to join us as a Woodland Creation Officer and expand our existing high-performing team. You’ll work to secure increased levels of woodland creation and tree planting to boost the creation of the Forest of Marston Vale. Our existing team are delivering more woodland than ever before in our long history, and we’re looking for someone to help us manage this and do even more.

To do this, you’ll work proactively with farmers and other landowners to promote, secure and implement new woodland creation projects and schemes, and be instrumental in delivering our c.£8m Trees for Climate programme, supported by Defra. As part of doing this, you’ll take a confident approach to engaging with landowners and managers, and be able to use your technical and practical knowledge to provide professional advice to them. You’ll be able to comfortably undertake surveys and assessments of land, then design and prepare tree planting, woodland creation and other habitat creation schemes, and ensure their successful delivery, including managing contractors .

To be successful in the role, you will require similar experience/ knowledge within a similar land management role alongside previous experience of working pro-actively alongside landowners.

Although these are the specifications for the role, there may be the opportunity for development depending on an applicant’s knowledge and passion of a range of habitats and their management. We therefore invite all levels of expertise and experience to apply to open up a discussion around these development opportunities. Like the Forest we’re creating, we’re keen to help people grow to fulfil their potential.

The role will require travel around the Marston Vale area and applicants are therefore required to hold a full driving licence or have the ability to accommodate such travel.

In return, we offer a competitive starting salary of up to £34,000 (experience dependant) 25 days holiday (plus bank/public holidays) and a pension scheme, plus the chance to be part of a small, high-performing, professional team that are passionate about improving the environment and have an enviable track record in delivering great results.

Should you be interested in this role we would love to hear from you. Please email [email protected] with your CV. A detailed job description and further information on our charity and mission is available upon request.

You can download a copy of the Job Description and Person Specification here.

Find out more about who we are.

To apply please email [email protected] with your CV and cover letter.

The closing date for applications is the 24^TH April 2023 with interviews to be arranged shortly after.

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If you have any problems downloading the information please contact us on 01234 767037.

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