Salary range: Grade 9 - 11 £42,060 - £49,056 p.a. plus fantastic benefits
Contract: Fixed Term
Hours of work: 36 hours per week
Location: Croydon

Fixed Term Contract 1-year, with the possibility of extension

The post offers an exciting opportunity for experienced and motivated creative professionals with backgrounds in public engagement, public programmes, stakeholder management and cultural space management to join one of the most progressive public sector design and policy teams in the UK, to coordinate the thought-leading and award-winning Croydon Urban Room project.

The Spatial Planning, Growth Zone and Regeneration directorate, with its Placemaking Team at the heart of it, delivers a diverse range of activities and programmes to support good growth, working to ensure Croydon meets its full potential. The Croydon Urban Room is at the heart of shaping the recovery and resilience of an important part of Croydon town centre. Its role is to explore and define the future of the town centre within the changing retail landscape and help democratise what can often be top-down processes in future planning and placemaking.

About the Placemaking Team

The Croydon Council Placemaking Team is an award winning, multidisciplinary team of built environment practitioners with experience from the strategic level through to detailed design and delivery. The team sits within the council’s Strategic Planning and Regeneration directorate and works across strategic planning, urban design, architecture, landscape architecture, research, public engagement, public realm, public art, culture, heritage and conservation. The team is part of the Spatial Planning Service, which brings together Croydon’s Placemaking and Planmaking functions to provide a holistic and coordinated approach to planning, design and delivery. It comprises of urban designers, architects, landscape architects, built heritage specialists, cultural practitioners and planners.

About the role

The role will coordinate and support the Croydon Urban Room project; a physical and digital space for public participation, exploring the past, present and future to foster meaningful connection between people and place.

We are looking for candidates with experience of developing and delivering public-facing cultural spaces and programmes across a range of scales and audiences, with good knowledge of space management and event production. Candidates should be confident communicators in a public-facing context and have good knowledge of public and stakeholder engagement, marketing and communications, graphic design, web and social media. Also desirable is knowledge and experience of fundraising and fostering and supporting external partnership across universities, government and business. We are looking for independent and creative project managers with innovative and design-led approaches to public programming, exhibition curation, and community outreach.

An interest in the Croydon context, with some knowledge of the south London context and the current challenges and opportunities of town centres and high streets, spatial policy and urban design would be desirable.

The Croydon Placemaking Team is committed to ensuring a fair and open place of work. We aim to shape places that are created with and enjoyed by all people of different cultures, identities, needs and experiences. We believe that our team should reflect the diverse communities we serve and therefore particularly encourage applications from disability groups, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Colour), and people with trans+ identities, who are currently under-represented within our team.

As users of the disability confident scheme, we guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the advertised role. We will also be pleased to consider applications from candidates seeking flexible working arrangements.

Croydon council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults and expects all staff to share this commitment.

The role is 36 hours per week, with regular Saturday working.

To arrange an informal discussion, please email Beatrice McDermott (Urban Room Manager) beatrice.mcdermott@croydon.gov.uk

To view the Urban Room Coordinator role profile, click here.