Head of Recreation & Visitor Experience

This is an exciting opportunity to join England’s largest land manager and play a leading role in the shaping the future of the nation’s forests in Yorkshire. The Head of Recreation and Visitor Experience is part of the Yorkshire Forest District’s senior leadership team, helping to steer and drive the delivery of Forestry England’s strategy. As the strategic lead for engaging people with the nation’s forests in Yorkshire, you will be at the forefront of working towards Forestry England’s vision of ‘our forests being living treasures for everyone, deeply connected to people’s lives and improving the health and wellbeing of the nation’.

The role is accountable for the very busy Forest Centre at Dalby Forest, as well as creating and managing opportunities for hundreds of thousands of people to enjoy our wider estate. You will develop our offer to meet the needs of existing customers, attract new visitors and enable a wider range of people to enjoy the nation’s forests.

The Head of Recreation and Visitor experience will ensure that our visitor offer is supported by a sustainable financial model, including through agreements with commercial partners. They will also develop fundable projects and opportunities that enable underrepresented audiences to enjoy the nation’s forests, which will include collaboration with not-for-profit partners.

The role will be challenging and rewarding, and we seek someone with the motivation and enthusiasm to drive social benefits, grow our recreation business, build a strong culture of cross-team working and empower their team to share responsibility for success.

Role Accountabilities:

• To develop and implement a clear, ambitious but achievable plan for the district’s strategic aims for the nation’s forests, growing engagement and enabling our visitors to reflect the diversity of our communities.
• To provide value-led, inspirational leadership to the Recreation and Visitor Experience Team. Developing a positive team culture, growing staff skills, empowering people to take responsibility and improving cross-team working.
• To set and manage the department budget, meeting, and where possible exceeding, annual targets for net income and delivering growth over a 5-year period.    
• To set and achieve the business plan’s strategic objectives for recreation, visitor experience and engagement.
• To develop our recreation and visitor offer through productive partnerships with commercial and not-for-profit organisations that can support the growth of net income and/or deliver of our strategic objectives.
• To embed the district’s delivery plan into team workplans, directing capacity away from low priority activities and ensuring that decisions are based on the financial and social Return on Investment.  

Role Responsibilities:

• To be a proactive member of the district’s Senior Leadership Team, contributing to Business Unit management, strategic decisions and problem solving.
• To role-model Forestry England’s values.
• To act on market insight and performance data to inform business planning and future forecasting of our recreation and visitor businesses.
• Managing the delivery of internal and external communications, in collaboration with the Forest Management Director, district senior leadership team and national team colleagues

Wider Responsibilities:

• Keeping Health and Safety matters as the overriding determinant at all times and in all circumstances
• Ensuring application and adherence to Forestry England Policies and Procedures
• Improvement of environmental sustainability within the Recreation and Visitor Experience Team.
• Any other tasks, reasonably requested by the Forest Management Director.

The post will be based at Forestry England’s Yorkshire district offices in Pickering. It will also be required to work from the Dalby Forest Visitor Centre. The post will be subject to Forestry England’s blended working policy, with at least two days per week working in the office, at least one of which should be in Pickering.

Essential:

• Broad knowledge of visitor experience and public engagement approaches.
• Experience of managing visitor facilities for both informal public access and commercial recreation activities.
• A track record of successful team leadership, setting strategic direction, motivating, and supporting staff to meet agreed objectives.
• Experience of Business Planning, budgeting, and financial monitoring.
• Experience of working collaboratively across functional teams and stakeholders, and able to inspire others to do the same.
• Competent IT user with experience of the MS office suite of applications.
• Excellent workload organisation, prioritisation, and delegation skills.
• A good standard of written and verbal communication.

Desirable:

• Able to inspire people about the social benefits of engaging with the natural environment.
• Experience of building and managing commercial partnerships, including knowledge of procurement and contract management.
• Project management experience
• An effective stakeholder manager and negotiator.
• Knowledge of coaching approaches.
• Knowledge of applying health and safety legislation in a recreational environment
• Track record of innovating to solve problems and create opportunities.

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

• Leadership
• Managing a Quality Service
• Working Together
• Delivering at Pace

• 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 : Lee Burkill
• Email : lee.burkill@forestryengland.uk
• Telephone : 07342 086423

Recruitment team

• Email : fcerecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk