Thomas Carmona

Hi, I'm Thomas. I live in East Surrey. I work for a council as their Parks and Countryside Officer.

I spend most of my time managing the council's land, so the countryside sites as well as the parks, so including playgrounds, woodlands, grasslands, all the sites that you enjoy on your weekends and evenings, I manage for wildlife and visitors.

I spend a lot of time kind of outdoors, which I love, so I'm probably half in the office, half outdoors. When I'm outdoors, I'm inspecting my sites. I'm seeing what needs doing in which site, so identifying any improvements to the parks and to the countryside sites in terms of habitat management and in terms of signage and visitor experience.

Day to day I'm writing and reviewing management plans, and writing and reviewing work programs. So what that means is I inspect the parks, I inspect woodlands, I inspect the grassland, I decide what needs doing. And then I decide, OK, how is this going to be done?

I do a lot of wildlife and habitat management as well. So for example, heathland is quite rare in Surrey. So I work closely with Natural England, which is a government agency. I work with their advisors, making sure that what I do and what the council does on the ground matches up with their requirements, as well as making sure visitors are enjoying their visits. So interpretation and signage, making sure access routes are maintained.

Also on the playground side as well, which is a big part of my role, is procurement for new playgrounds, new play equipment, making sure we get the best value from public money.

So working for the council, so it's a public body. So it's all about working with other people.

So the big one is residents, the second biggest is councillors. Though the councillors might have something to say about that, but it's making sure I'm working with the local community, making sure that I'm delivering for the community.

So speaking to councillors that represent their communities. What do people want to see? So for example, a lot of my work currently is trying to do things for teenagers. So teenage hangout spots, making sure it's not just little kid's playgrounds. There's actually like skate parks, trim trails, our core courses, things like that.

And then another big person I work with is actually the grazier. So I go out on site with the grazier and we talk about what livestock is needed for this say grassland.

So I manage acid grassland, neutral grassland and chalk grassland. So it's about saying to the grazier, OK, what's here now? How can we make the field more biodiverse? How can we attract more plants and more animals? So we kind of talk about ground conditions, we talk about stocking densities. So that's the part which I quite enjoy.

Volunteers again is a big player I work with, so we've got a lot of community groups, I really enjoy working with them, deciding and agreeing what they can do on what site, making sure that it complements what the council does themselves.

The best thing is... I actually like working with volunteers a lot.

I'm kind of... I enjoy working with people, which is a key skill for this job and I enjoy kind of talking about their ideas for the site because quite often they have ideas which I wouldn't have thought of and then we discuss the practicalities of those ideas.

And then quite often as well, you know, I'll go for, we have quite often Christmas drinks and summer barbecues with the volunteers, which is great.

The hardest part is again the people side and this is actually probably something people don't realise.

It's much more about the people than the actual land but it is about everyone's got a different expectation of the countryside and of parks. One person might love short grass to walk their dog, other people want long grass for wildlife. So that is definitely a hard bit, justifying management regimes and trying to keep everyone happy-ish.

So a lot of it is zoning, saying this site is a nature reserve, this site is a formal park, but having say long areas of long grass in those parks. Likewise having a couple bits of play equipment in a nature reserve, it's about the balance and being able to justify.

So I'm only 25 and I finished my GCSEs... I'm an August birthday, so I did them at 15.

And my mum was like, so Thomas, what do you want to do now? And I was like, I don't know. So I did a lot of research into kind of college and sixth forms, apprenticeships, a wide range of things.

And I found this countryside management course and I kind of didn't think much of it but I thought I'd go to the open day which I liked and then I went to the trial day again which I liked and I just thought yeah I'll go for it.

So that was a Level 3 BTEC in countryside management, I did 16 to 18 at college. Really enjoyed it and then did a degree in countryside management, so college at Merrist Wood uni at Harper Adams.

And then my first job kind of starting off, I was a ranger for the National Trust. And then I developed into an officer role and I've been doing that now for three years.

I suppose in terms of the kind of content side, applied science is useful, geography is useful, business is useful, maths is useful. English is always going to be useful. I suppose, environmental science as well will always help.

And then from a kind of a mindset point of view as well, you know, you've got to work hard, got to put the hours in like any job, like any career. The more you put in, the more you're going to get out of it.

So like currently I'm doing... like even though I'm 25, the learning doesn't stop. So doing deer management qualifications, horticultural qualifications, getting professional accreditations. So from the Chartered Institute of Environment Ecology Management, as well as the Countryside Management Association.

So it's all about demonstrating your skills. The more you put in, the more you get out of it.

I mean, like project management, for example. Something that hadn't really crossed my mind. The current project I'm working on is worth £600,000 trying to redevelop three playgrounds. And they said, OK, Thomas, you've got to get your PMQ, your project management qualification from the Association of Project Managers.

So yeah, you're always learning but exciting times ahead and I guess a lot of people see the ultimate goal as it were as eventually becoming an estate manager or a forest manager but obviously everyone's career is different.

OK, recent example, opening a skate park. So this was something which stakeholder management, budget management, project management throughout, keeping the contractors to their agreed deadlines.

But once it's open, it's brilliant. And we did a big open event for the new skate park. And we got local businesses down, we got Dr Bike down, cycling proficiency. So even if you couldn't skate or scooter or BMX, like it was just a really good community event. Councillors were there, officers.

It was a great chance for me to speak to local residents and park users about how they use the park and, you know, you get a lot of positive feedback which is great. I've said before I'm a people's person so I really enjoyed speaking to the community.

I suppose one bit of advice I wish I'd received is kind of back yourself, be confident.

Because I work in local authority, I am kind of the youngest by about 20 years in the department. So yeah, I kind of go in with confidence.

Know that you know what you're talking about, you kind of almost fake it till you make it, but just having that kind of confidence and just say look OK, I still have a lot to learn but no one's perfect, everyone's kind of making it up as they go along anyway.

So you just have to go in, you know prepare before meetings, prepare before presentations, go in with a bit of, yeah, self-confidence. I mean, as long as you just say your point.

OK, this is one bit of advice from school: PEE. Point. Evidence. Explain. You learned it in English, year 7 to year 9, I've not stopped, I've not stopped using that. That's probably the best thing I learned at school. Make your point, explain what you mean. By the way, this is where it's worked before.