Conservation group support

The council values the enormous contribution given by local volunteers who help to manage our parks and open spaces for the benefit of both people and wildlife. This page offers general advice on how you can volunteer across the council’s green spaces, as well as how to run nature-related activities on council land, while raising awareness of the safety requirements.

We have a duty of care to ensure that all locally organised activities on council land are held in a safe manner.

The guidance aims to be comprehensive and covers most of the regular activities and hazards relating to green space volunteering. However, on occasion, unforeseen circumstances may occur that mean new temporary or permanent guidance is issued which could work alongside, or override, elements of existing guidance. If this is the case, all community groups and volunteers will be notified.

A guide for green space volunteers

The main guide for information about volunteering in council open spaces, from opportunities and communication, to health and safety, insurance and environmental considerations.

It is a good background document for new volunteers, as well as those with less experience, and should answer most common queries for those who have been volunteering for longer.

A toolkit for green space volunteers

A supporting document to the guide. It contains templates to help us collate some mandatory information about groups volunteering on council land, as well as some optional templates that volunteers might find useful to help coordinate group members and activities.

Each of the individual templates within the toolkit booklet are also available to download as word documents, that can be edited and populated with content.

A manual for green space volunteers

This is a tool safety manual which demonstrates how to use, store and maintain some of the most common hand tools conservation volunteers use.

It’s a good induction for new volunteers, as well as providing a reference for any queries from existing volunteers.

Toolkit documents

The guide and toolkit for green space volunteers explain the planning and monitoring that needs to be done in order to undertake activities safely in public open space.

These templates correspond to the documents within the toolkit and we hope they make keeping on top of admin easier!

The key on the contents page of the toolkit guide and on each template heading within explains which documents are mandatory and how frequently they need to be completed and submitted to the council. There are also several templates which are optional and may help you coordinate your group and activities more easily.

Activity plan(DOCX) [23 kb]

Community Payback task checklist(DOCX) [24 kb]

GDPR and Photo Consent Form(DOCX) [29 kb]

Photo and Film Group Consent Form(DOCX) [24 kb]

PPE and first aid checklist(DOCX) [30 kb]

Risk assessment(DOCX) [30 kb]

Safety plan for green space volunteer tasks(DOCX) [36 kb]

Tool inventory and maintenance checklist(DOCX) [24 kb]

Tool store safety checklist(DOCX) [24 kb]

Work party safety checklist(DOCX) [26 kb]

Risk assessments

All open spaces worked in, or providing the backdrop for, an event must be risk assessed, along with any activities being undertaken in those sites.

A risk assessment identifies:

any hazards that might be present
enables you to estimate the severity of that hazard
how likely it is that the hazard will cause harm

Control measures can then be put in place to reduce the likelihood of the hazard causing harm, thus reducing the risk factor.

Below are template risk assessments that volunteers and local green space groups can edit and use.

Our Community Development Officer for Green Spaces can also support groups to produce new risk assessments and to update existing ones.

All risk assessments used by groups must be reviewed and signed off annually by the council, as well as after any amendments/updates. It is important that all volunteers and members of groups have seen and understand the risk assessments relevant to them and the control measures in place to keep them, the general public and the environment safe.

Risk assessment - tree planting(PDF) [145 kb]