Ecology Officer

What will you be doing?

As a member of the County Council's Biodiversity Team, your main role will be to help meet the County Council's new biodiversity responsibilities. Working with the Principal Ecology Officer you will collaborate with other members within the Natural & Historic Environment Service as well as other departments such as Planning, Climate Change, Rural Estates, Flooding, Highways and Land & Property.   

Key aspects of this role will include:   

Biodiversity Planning

• Reviewing and responding to planning applications to ensure the County Council meets its statutory duty for conserving and enhancing biodiversity 

• Advising on ecological aspects of planning applications (as well as pre-application responses)

• Supporting the delivery of the Council’s biodiversity strategy and other policies, working collaboratively and in partnership with internal colleagues.   

• Undertaking ecology surveys and writing reports   

• Providing in-house ecological advice

• Assisting the team with delivery of the Council's Biodiversity Strategy, Tree & Woodland Strategy and Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS)

Biodiversity Projects

• Contribute to the future direction of partnership projects and strategies that improve the natural environment, such as community led nature recovery

• Developing and implementing biodiversity projects and schemes, in accordance with the County Council’s Climate Change & Environment Strategy and Council’s statutory duty to conserve and enhance biodiversity

• Representing the County Council and support partnerships, including the County Wildlife Sites Panel, Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Environment Record Centre and Biodiversity Working Group

Information, interpretation and monitoring

• Ensuring that information on progress towards biodiversity targets and up-to-date ecological information is available and interpreted

• Monitoring of the condition of nature conservation sites (e.g., Protected Road Verges Local Nature Reserves & County Wildlife Sites), supporting the local record centre to provide up-to-date ecological information and promoting key messages on biodiversity and nature conservation issues
• Keeping an overview of the Council’s responsibilities in biodiversity action planning and maintain knowledge of data available from other sources.

The role requires travel to locations across Cambridgeshire so you must either hold a full and current driving licence and have access to personal transport or meet the mobility requirements of the role through other reasonable and suitable means. The Council offers a pool car service with cars based at the main offices throughout Cambridgeshire. This means that cars can be booked and used for site visits and meetings. 

For more information or to chat about this opportunity please contact Deborah Ahmad at deborah.ahmad@cambridgeshire.gov.uk or 07391730740 or Phil Clark at philip.clark@cambridgeshire.gov.uk or 07826 858286

About you

To be successful in this role we are looking for someone who: 

• Is confident in assessing complex technical ecological information. 

• Can demonstrate an understanding of ecological planning issues as your work will include prioritising responses to planning applications, compiling reports, and providing planning advice. 

• Is confident in providing habitat management advice for the County Council’s owned nature reserves and other biodiversity sites to contractors and the nature reserve Friends Groups. 

• Is confident in working with local communities and advising colleagues on the Council’s major projects. 

• Has experience in developing and implementing new policies. 

• Can make informed and independent decisions with minimal supervision. 

• Is pro-active and shows initiative to develop new ideas.  

• Can manage workload effectively to meet strict deadlines while being a part of a dynamic and busy team.  

• Is computer literate with experience in GIS systems and using databases.  

Our benefits

We value our colleagues in Cambridgeshire County Council and have developed a number of benefits in addition to the basics like annual leave, sick pay, pension and mileage…

• A comprehensive wellbeing package to cover all aspects of wellbeing, both in and out of work, which can also be accessed by your family
• Buy up to 4 weeks additional annual leave (pro-rata) through our salary sacrifice scheme
• Take your bank holidays flexibly to better suit your personal circumstances
• Make Additional Voluntary Contributions (Shared AVCs) to your pension with tax and National Insurance savings
• Access to development opportunities, apprenticeships and qualified coaches to support your personal and professional growth
• Paid volunteering hours each year so you can make a positive impact on our community during your normal working day
• Access to Peer Support Groups through our IDEAL staff equality, diversity and inclusion network
• Opportunities to nominate and receive Employee Recognition Awards
• An Our Cambs Rewards account, giving you access to in-store and online discounts as well as our Car Lease and Cycle to Work schemes

About us

You can find out more about the Natural & Historic Environment Service here:

Cambridgeshire is a great place to work and live with a diverse population, an urban centre in Cambridge, historic Isle of Ely, Huntingdon and St Ives as well as more rural landscapes.

Our four values are central to our culture, driving everything we do.

We are proud to serve the diverse communities of Cambridgeshire and want our workforce to be reflective of this diversity, which we firmly believe benefits our colleagues, the organisation and our communities. If you don’t meet every single requirement in the job role but think this could be you, please don’t be put off.   We are committed to building a workplace that is compassionate and inclusive as well as diverse, so if you think you could be a good candidate for this role please consider applying and speak to the recruiting manager if you have any questions.

Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, along with our employee network 'IDEAL' and self-organised peer support groups help us to foster an inclusive, supportive and safe working environment where people feel valued, respected, and empowered.  We collect relevant diversity data for monitoring as part of the recruitment process to understand the diversity of our applicants and monitor any trends throughout the recruitment processes so that we can take meaningful action.

We are proud to be a Disability Confident Employer. We fully support providing reasonable adjustments throughout our recruitment process, as well as when you join us, and we encourage candidates to contact the Hiring Manager, whose details can be found in the advert, to discuss any adjustment needs. Some examples of adjustments could include additional time to complete an assessment or printing a document on pastel coloured paper with larger font size and line spacing. We would value talking about what might be possible to enable you to join us and thrive, so if there is something that would help you to do your best during your journey with us, please get in touch.

Visit our jobs and careers section to find out more about our wide range of learning and development opportunities; apprenticeships; our wellbeing package; staff benefits; our commitment to equality, diversity and Inclusion. 

https://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/council/jobs-and-careers