Job Profile: Lead Ranger

Name: James Allen

Location: Beckenham Place Park, we’re an urban country park in south east London which is 97 hectares around a third of which is ancient woodland, as well as areas of managed meadow and 4 water bodies including 900m of river. We also have large areas of amenity grassland, heritage buildings and a formal garden.

Employer: Lewisham Borough Council

Job Responsibilities:

I look after the conservation work in the park, coordinate the volunteer programme and manage community liaison. Despite being a “lead ranger” I am the only ranger / countryside management specialist on site, but I do work with the wider grounds team and my excellent volunteers to achieve the work I do and have “one foot” in the small wider borough Nature Conservation team. This means I have a heavy focus on woodland management due to the high volume we have here but also have general oversight of the wilder areas of the park. It is really varied most of the time.

Working with our volunteers is what the majority of my time is spent doing, being part of the parks leadership team as well as the only ranger means I’m fairly evenly split between field work and office work but the volunteer sessions very much keep me grounded and outdoors as much as possible.

Time is spent mainly outdoors (just!).

There is definitely seasonal variation, being a large park in London means the general public numbers are quite remarkable during the warmer weather and this brings its challenges as well as responsibilities to ensure their “green lung” is the best it can be. Winter is my favourite as I can really crack on with woodland management tasks.

Qualifications needed:

Degree or equivalent experience, I’ve personally worked up purely on experience, I learnt some of my skills growing up in a rural community, spent a fair amount of time volunteering before landing my first ranger job at a different council and then became a lead ranger at my current council after I’d clocked up about 15 years experience.

Additional training: Currently I have qualifications in:

• Chainsaw – cross-cut and felling & processing
• Brushcutting
• Pesticides – PA1/PA6
• Woodchippers
• Professional Tree Inspection
• First Aid
• Water Rescue
• As well as an enhanced DBS and other training course.

Skills needed: I think one of the biggest skills for the practical side of things is problem solving, you can still be met with things you’ve never come across before and need to fix it in the field and the tool you need is the one you haven’t brought with you.

People skills is massive too, people are very interested in what we do and you will frequently have to stop and explain yourself, engagement in what we do is more important now than ever.

Advice to anyone looking at similar roles:

I do think this is the type of job some people are just made for, try some volunteering in a variety of seasons and weathers, it also helps to work out a specialism which will help in focussing on which sites you’ll work best on. Many of us are generalists, quite good at lots of things but with one or two things we know a lot more about.

If I was doing it all again and didn’t have the lived country experience, I think an apprenticeship is a great way in to learn the practical skills needed.

If you have any queries about this role or would like to ask a question please get in touch here

Find all the articles in the CJS Focus on...Countryside Management Series here

More from London Borough of Lewisham