Full Time / 37 Hour Per Week / Permanent

Join our horticultural team to make improvements to the landscape of the city.

Leicester is covered by a wealth of soft and hard open spaces that includes a range of parks, gardens, country parks, nature areas,150,000 individual trees and 107 hectares of woodlands, canal, and riverside, 150 play and outdoor gym facilities, sports facilities, highways, and housing green spaces totalling 1,250 hectares. It is widely recognised that quality open spaces contribute to residents' quality of life and improve physical and mental health wellbeing, with parks in Leicester attracting around 9 million visitors per annum.

Join our specialist team of Craft Gardeners to undertake high quality horticultural work and grounds maintenance work to maintain and further improve parks and open spaces and all other green infrastructure within the city of Leicester.

You'll be based at New Fields Avenue grounds maintenance depot. You'll work specifically within the Braunstone area of the city although you will be required at other grounds maintenance depots as and when required to meet service demands.

This is a full-time, permanent position for a period of 24 months, working 37 hours per week from Monday to Friday. You'll be available to start the working day at 7:30am and when required, work outside of normal working hours including providing emergency cover for out of hours. You'll be able to work outside in all weathers, anywhere in the city and wear PPE where appropriate.

What you'll be doing

You'll work under the guidance of the Local Area Manager and Team Leader, to maintain horticultural features as well as hard landscape features including buildings. This includes preparing and applying chemicals, keeping sites clean and tidy, and maintaining sports features such as artificial surfaces. You'll operate and maintain hand and mechanical specialist equipment in accordance with health and safety guidelines. You'll be confident in providing advice to people using our facilities to ensure a high standard of customer service is achieved.

What you'll need

With previous experience in either horticulture or groundsmanship, you'll understand COSHH regulations and have knowledge of health & safety. You'll have the ability to carry out manual handling and lifting heavy equipment and materials. You'll be able to work without close supervision, whilst using your own initiative as well as working well in a team environment. You'll be a highly safety conscious individual in the day-to-day tasks especially when using specialist equipment. Using good literacy and numeracy skills you'll complete relevant paperwork, and ensure records are accurate and up to date.

A full driving licence is essential as you will be required to carry out driving duties.

What we can offer you

As well as the satisfaction of helping to improve thousands of lives across Leicester, you can look forward to a work environment that encourages a healthy work/life balance. You'll enjoy generous annual leave, membership of the Local Government Pension Scheme and the option of flexible working. We'll also give you the chance to develop your skills and expertise with a variety of training and development opportunities. In addition, you can choose from several flexible benefits, including discounts on city buses and trains. For an illustrative value of your benefits package, take a look at our benefits calculator.

Join us

We're committed to recruiting a diverse and highly-talented workforce as we continue to build a council that is fitting and representative of our great city. That's why we've designed our recruitment process to put you at your ease, make you feel welcome and bring the best out of you. We'll do all we can to make our recruitment process as fair as possible. To help you with your application, take a look at the 'our approach to recruitment' page.

If you'd like a chat about this post, feel free to contact to Mark Humphrey by email to mark.humphrey@leicester.gov.uk or call 0116 454 3774.

This is an open advert therefore we will complete the short-listing soon after receiving your application. If short-listed, you'll be called for an assessment and/or interview thereafter.

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