River Catchment Manager

River Catchment Manager

Do you love our chalk streams? Would you like to make a positive difference? Are you a well organised, good communicator who can quickly build relationships and inspire action?

ARK is the rivers trust for the Kennet and Pang catchments, part of the Rivers Trust Movement working to achieve wild and healthy rivers valued by all. We are recruiting for a catchment manager to coordinate work across the Pang Flagship Chalk Stream Partnership and the Kennet Catchment Partnership.

Your principal responsibilities will be to:

• Drive the Pang Flagship Chalk Stream Partnership, providing leadership, inspiration and ensuring successful delivery of projects.
• Build the Kennet Catchment Partnership, ensuring that partners are engaged and the partnership drives action to improve our rivers.
• Develop and maintain relationships with landowners, farmers, conservation groups, statutory agencies and local communities.
• Build new activities and secure additional funding to maximise the impact of the partnerships.
• Engage and inspire stakeholders, facilitating meetings, workshops and a communications programme to build momentum for chalk stream recovery.
• Manage project finances, including budgets, grant claims, and funding applications, ensuring financial accountability.
• Ensure that catchment management plans are kept up to date and contractual reporting requirements are met.
• Work closely with the ARK management team to ensure that projects are tracked and aligned.
• Work closely with ARK’s river project officers to link evidence to action and outreach
• Be able to work on site across the Kennet and Pang catchments, including the ARK office in Marlborough.

Skills and experience

• An understanding of and love for rivers, particularly chalk streams.
• A strong track record managing complex projects or programmes, including managing budgets and financial reporting.
• Experience in river restoration/catchment management/conservation/land management sectors
• Good knowledge of the Catchment Based Approach and chalk stream restoration principles
• Skilled in consensus building
• Able to write strong funding bids
• Strong communication skills across printed, digital and face to face formats
• Self motivated and innovative
• Expert in Excel, Word and GIS
• Full driving licence with access to a car. A shared work truck is available.
• The successful candidate will want to be outdoors to see and understand work on the ground, as well as happy to work behind the scenes to ensure smooth running of the programme.

The Pang Flagship Chalk Stream Project

The Pang Flagship Chalk Stream project was established in 2023 and a steering group has been meeting regularly to agree project priorities and actions. We have secured funding until 2030, with funds available for immediate project delivery and development. A number of projects are under way, with a pipeline to be developed and delivered. This catchment project manager role offers an exciting opportunity to realise a step change in the health of one of England’s chalk streams, working with a small committed team and harnessing the power of partnership across organisations and communities. For information about Pang Flagship Chalk Stream see: Pang Flagship Chalk Stream Restoration Partnership – Working together for a clean and healthy River Pang

The Kennet Catchment Partnership

The Kennet Catchment Partnership is one of the longest established catchment partnerships in the country. It has a broad and engaged membership and a pipeline of identified projects. For more information about the Kennet Catchment Partnership see: www.kennetcatchment.org For more information about ARK see: www.kennetandpang.org

What we offer

We offer a flexible, supportive working environment and encourage hybrid working. We think it’s important to have an office base so that the team can meet regularly and learn from each other, so we expect that staff will work from home, office and in the catchment in a typical week. Please don’t apply if you want to only work remotely. We want you to learn and grow with us, so we support professional development through training, CPD opportunities and learning alongside experienced colleagues. Our culture is friendly, supportive and mission driven. We all love rivers and our office is across the meadow from the River Kennet.

This is a full time role, but many of our team work part time and we will consider applications from people who would prefer to work part time.

Salary:

£36,000 – £38,000 + work place pension scheme. 37.5 hour working week, 25 days holiday plus bank holidays. Access to shared work vehicle.