Andy Maskell
"I started in the summer of 2001 as a Senior Gardener. I applied to work at Chessington, now part of the Merlin Entertainments Group, because I’d just finished my National Diploma in Landscape Construction and Amenity Horticulture and was looking for a challenging role. I saw the advert and thought what a fantastic opportunity. I thought it would be interesting to work in a Zoo and knew there would be landscape theming involved and this wouldn’t be your average gardening maintenance role – more interesting and adventurous! I wanted to work for a larger company as there would be more opportunities for me; hopefully I would be recognised and given more training, which has certainly been the case. The job involves more landscape project work and theming of areas than general maintenance, projects involve designing an area, choosing the relevant planting and then ensuring all work runs smoothly and is completed on time."
"Most recently I’ve
been involved with the landscaping of the new Holiday Inn Hotel and
Creature Features area of the park. We laid over 7000 square metres of
turf and even built a duck house for some stray ducks, but most of the
time, my job is like working on a film set – it’s all themed to fit in
with the relevant area and for the Zoo, we might even have to ensure
the plants are edible for the animals close by! Landscape puts the
‘Park’ into ‘Theme Park’. It’s not all glamorous though – health &
safety is an important aspect of my job and I’m also responsible for
the management of the rest of the Landscape Team, recruiting, training
and even a bit of admin."
"As well as the induction everyone
receives at the start of their employment, I’ve also been lucky enough
to go through intensive training, which has included Cherry Picker
training, Forklift training, Chainsaw training and Crane Operator
training and my recent Personal Development Plan has now led me onto a
4-year degree, which I am now half way through, working towards a BSC
in Landscape Management. It all goes to show that Merlin Entertainments
takes the development of their employees very seriously and invests in
their employees, and if that wasn’t enough…..each year we have a couple
of all cast presentations where all the staff get together to find out
about what went well, what’s new for the coming year and there’s also
an award ceremony – in 2005 Landscape won ‘Team of the Year’ for the
fantastic presentation of the Park – as you can imagine, we celebrated
in traditional ‘Theme Park’ style!"
