Casual Public Spaces Maintenance Operatives in Leicester

Be a part of our Parks and Open Spaces 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 9m visitors per annum.

Join our specialist teams within Parks and Open Spaces to undertake high quality 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 one of our grounds maintenance depots. These are casual posts working Monday to Friday. You’ll be available to start the working day at 7:30am and where required work weekends and bank holidays to provide additional cover. 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 make Leicester’s green infrastructure free of barriers to access, by helping to maintain its 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

• Ideally with some previous experience in either horticulture or groundsmanship or similar, you'll understand COSHH regulations and have knowledge of health & safety issues relating to area of work and HASWA.
• 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.
• 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.

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. 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.