Adrian Crowe - Park Ranger

Park Ranger at Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council

Fresh air, out in all weather, plenty of exercise, a passion for wildlife, parks and people; if those fire you up then you’d love my job. 

I’m Adrian and I am a Park Ranger. Not a “Lone Ranger”, there is a small team of us, and we look after our parks and open spaces, including wetlands, meadows and woodlands. These public spaces are so important to community health and wellbeing. 

I’ve such variety in my job. One day I could be tree planting, hedgelaying, or doing access work in one of our parks with a group of volunteers. The next I could be dealing with vandalism and graffiti, or fire damage and fly tipping; the less nice aspects of the job, as a result of a small minority that can spoil our public open spaces. 

Part of my job is making sure our parks are safe and our contractors are maintaining standards; emptying bins, cutting grass and grounds maintenance, health and safety work. 

We do many events for the community to educate people about nature conservation, lead wildlife walks and get people involved in our parks. We are really proud to have 16 parks that have the coveted Green Flag status; we have to show how we meet the threshold score to warrant a flag. 

This job is as much about the people as the parks. As well as working with many local voluntary groups and doing tree and bulb planting with local schools, I do a lot of work with the business community. One of our local companies invited colleagues from around the country for a meeting at their HQ and wanted to give something back to the local community. I got them out coppicing in one of our woodlands, so we get that work done ‘for free’ and it’s a chance for them to learn a new skill and great for team building too. 

My background is in countryside and environmental management, and I get well supported with ongoing training from understanding autism to the safe use of power tools. It’s definitely not about the money, there are so many other benefits such as being out in the community and in green spaces and rarely behind a desk.

Adrian is featured in our Local Government Career Guide, click here to  find out more about working in local government and the wide variety of career options available. 

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