What does a Public Realm Operative do at Southwark Council?

Are you passionate about creating and maintaining vibrant, safe, and accessible public spaces? Do you have the skills, experience, and motivation to make a visible difference in your community? If so, we’d love for you to join our team at Southwark Council as a Public Realm Operative!

Key Responsibilities:

• Perform inspections, repairs, and maintenance on public realm assets, including highways, parks, open spaces, and housing-managed areas.
• Install and maintain public realm furniture, lighting, play equipment, paving, fencing, drainage, and other essential infrastructure.
• Ensure compliance with health and safety regulations, including NRSWA and HASAW standards, while maintaining high-quality work.
• Use your multi-trade skills to deliver planned and responsive maintenance across the borough.
• Provide immediate repairs to identified risks and ensure the safety and quality of public spaces.
• Mentor and support apprentices, trainees, and work placement students, sharing your expertise.
• Engage with the community, delivering excellent customer service and contributing to a resident-focused service.

What We’re Looking For:

• Essential Qualifications:
• Strong knowledge of health and safety regulations and experience with public realm infrastructure.
• Proven experience in repairs, maintenance, and installation within the public sector.
• Ability to read and interpret site instructions, maps, and drawings, and to operate equipment for specific tasks.
• Excellent communication skills, problem-solving abilities, and a proactive approach to work.
• Willingness to work at heights and utilize personal protective equipment (PPE).

About Southwark:

We are the largest local authority social landlord in London, managing 55,000 homes lived in by 40% of Southwark’s residents. We are home to over 18,300 businesses including iconic London venues and social enterprises and we have a young, diverse and growing population.At Southwark we are committed to making our borough just and fair and are taking positive action to tackle inequalities.? Our residents and communities are our greatest asset and the passion we have for Southwark is shared by millions of Londoners who enjoy our outstanding cultural offer, use our hospitals and attend our universities. Our refreshed borough plan and focus on Southwark Stands Together, (which is our work with Southwark’s communities and the council’s staff to tackle racism, injustice and inequality) underpins all that we do.

Benefits and more information:

In your role, we want you to feel supported, challenged and rewarded. You will benefit from our family-friendly policies including flexible working, home working, and a local government pension scheme, plus many other staff benefits. You will join a motivated, driven and supportive team that strives for excellence and values its members. You will also be part of a successful and high-achieving development team that is making a real difference to the lives of residents in the borough. For more information about the wide variety of benefits you can take advantage of please visit our Staff Benefits page.

Recruitment timetable

Closing date: 31/01/2025

Interview date: 11/02/2025

Guaranteed Interview Scheme:

As part of our commitment to inclusion, we offer guaranteed interviews for specific groups of people. To qualify, you'll need to meet the minimum requirements for the role, and identify with one of the below criteria:

•  Members of the Armed Forces and veterans
•  Are currently in care, or have previously been in care
•  If you consider yourself to be disabled or if you have a long-term health condition

We are an organisation who is passionate about our people and understands that richness of diversity is a requirement to provide the best possible services to our communities. This is demonstrated through our council-wide ambitious commitment to tackle racial inequality in our communities and workforce through our Southwark Stands Together programme. We particularly welcome applications from members of the Black, Asian and ethnic minority communities to increase representation at senior management level in the Council.

Attachments

• Please Click Here For the Job Description and Person Specification