West Kent Community and Engagement Team Leader

Role Responsibility

The KCC Transportation Department has recently been restructured and this has opened up various exciting opportunities to work within the Road Safety and Active Travel Group. We are looking for a proactive Team Leader to work within the Highway Improvement Teams in West Kent. You will be representing KCC in the community and will be expected to deliver excellent customer service to the residents of Kent.

Using excellent technical, management and people skills you will lead the West Kent Community and Engagement Team to deliver a common-sense approach to high quality and cost-effective highway improvement schemes across Kent. This will include (but not be limited to) identifying, developing, and consulting on various highway improvement proposals from a range of sources including Combined Member Grants and Parish Council schemes in an efficient and cost-effective way, ensuring that consistent processes are implemented.

The Highway Improvements Team work across three groups of interconnected work streams. These are divided into Community and Engagement, Planning and Advice and Design and Delivery. The Community and Engagement Team Leader will ensure that there is a smooth flow of work and information back and forth with the other 2 streams working alongside the Planning and Engagement and Design and Delivery Principal Engineers.

Community and Engagement will be the front facing team in highway improvements and the Team Leader will be a brilliant communicator who can provide information to elected officials, members of the public and internal partners in a clear and concise manner, whilst also helping to train and lead the wider Community and Engagement Team. You will need to be able to give advice to KCC members and Parish Council representatives about the likelihood of highway improvements and their feasibility, whilst you will have a nearby team of technical professionals to ask we would expect a good level of highways and transportation knowledge.

The role requires a good knowledge of relevant standards, national and local guidelines including Term Maintenance contracts, TSRGD and other highway documentation. You will need excellent interpersonal skills, with the ability to deal with the public in difficult circumstances, be self-motivated, with the ability to manage workloads.  A firm understanding of how Highway Authorities and Local Government work will be essential.

You will be required to present the road safety and active travel group in a positive light to the public and of course our internal customers and elected members and help design and create innovative methods of conveying the work that we do to our customers and partners. There will be a requirement to monitor incoming communications and response deadlines to ensure the wider team are meeting our commitments and requirements.

This post is considered by KCC to be a customer-facing position. The Council therefore has a statutory duty under Part 7 of the Immigration Act (2016) to ensure that post holders have a command of spoken English/Welsh sufficient for the effective performance of the job requirements. The appropriate standards are set out in the Job Description/Person Specification.

A Full UK Driving License - The Council is committed to making reasonable adjustments so whilst this job requires the jobholder to drive, your application will still be considered if you are unable to drive due to a disability.

The role(s) will be a full-time position on a 37 hours per week contract (Mon-Fri).  Candidates would be able to utilise hybrid working with a mixture of working from home and the office. The office base would be either the Ashford or Aylesford KCC Depot which can be agreed with the successful candidate(s). 

Contact Details

For more information about this post please contact:

Ryan Shiel - West Kent Highway Improvements Programme Manager - ryan.shiel@kent.gov.uk 

About the Company

KCC is committed to building a workforce which reflects the diversity of the county's working residents, encouraging applications from people of all ages, abilities, genders, sexual orientations, ethnic backgrounds and faiths, and aspires to create an inclusive workplace where everyone can be themselves at work.

Please note – if you are interested, please apply as soon as possible as the closing date for this advert may be earlier than stated should a number of suitably qualified candidates apply.