Director Spotlight: Alistair Shepherd
As Alistair prepares to step down from the BID board after several years, he has been reflecting on his time on the estate.
Save and sustain
When he reaches for a way to sum up what the BID has achieved, he finds himself borrowing from his employer. Baxter Healthcare’s strapline is ‘save and sustain’ – words that speak to the company’s mission of supporting life and keeping supply chains running. It is, he says, exactly what the BID team have done for Brackmills Industrial Estate.
From the Wild West to something to be proud of
Alistair first arrived on Brackmills in 1999, working for O2 Mobile, then part of BT. His memories of the estate at that time are vivid, and not in a good way.
“It was like the Wild West. Litter everywhere, lorries parked wherever they wanted, no yellow lines, nothing. Some mornings you’d arrive and there’d be travellers on what is now Reynoldston Close. It was just like any other industrial estate – nothing special, nothing to shout about.”
He left in 2002 and spent nearly a decade as a self-employed project manager, working across many different sites. When a call from an old contact brought him back to Brackmills in 2011 to join Baxter Healthcare, the difference was immediate.
“I was pleasantly surprised. The signage was better. The grass was cut. There were plants. The bins were emptied. It didn’t look threatening anymore. Someone had clearly sent in the sheriffs.”
The BID had been up and running for two years by then, and its impact was already visible. Alistair, who’d worked on enough industrial estates to know what good looked like, noticed immediately. “You got that feeling of, wow, what a difference.”
A proud board member and enthusiastic ambassador
Baxter, Alistair explains, took BID representation seriously. The company maintained a presence on the board throughout the years, rotating the role as senior staff moved into new positions. When it came to Alistair’s turn, he was already a convert.
What he brought to the role went well beyond simply attending meetings. A natural connector, Alistair made it his business to draw other companies in – stopping colleagues from neighbouring businesses in the car park, sharing knowledge, passing on contacts and making sure the businesses around him could tap into Baxter’s expertise whenever it was useful.
“I’d bump into someone and just ask, why have I never seen you at the BID? You get something through your door every month, you pay for it, you might as well use it. Come along, have a free breakfast, meet people who might help you.”
Those conversations led to real connections. Alistair helped smaller logistics firms tap into Baxter’s expertise, pointed people toward suppliers on the estate who could fix a forklift or source a truck at short notice, and championed the BID’s security communications to his own team. When drone operators began causing problems on the estate and the BID sent out alerts, it was Alistair making sure his sixty-strong yard of drivers knew exactly what to report and to whom.
“If you’ve got something kicking off and you go to complain on your own, you’re just Fred’s Logistics down the road. Give it to Sara and get everyone behind it, and suddenly it’s the Brackmills BID speaking. That gets things done.”
Stronger together
In nearly 44 years of working life – across Argos, O2, various self-employed projects and 15 years at Baxter – Alistair says he has never encountered anything quite like Brackmills BID. Not the infrastructure improvements alone, though those matter. It is the human element that stands out.
“What other estate in my career has offered that level of networking, that level of people reaching out to you? Not many. None that I can think of. It is genuinely unique.”
He is equally clear about what drives it. “You’ve got Sara and Charlotte. They’re determined, they’re smart, and when Sara gets the bit between her teeth, off she goes. My wife works in HR in Corby and she asks what the BID does. I tell her: they’ve got Charlotte, they’ve got Sara. That’s the difference.”
As Alistair heads into what he’s cheerfully planning as ‘the summer off’, and with a career in mentoring and consultancy possibly ahead, he remains a vocal advocate for everything Brackmills represents.
“I’m proud to have been part of a success story. This is what it’s about – a real community where people look out for each other. Every industrial estate should have this. Not many do.”
Alistair, from everyone at Brackmills BID – thank you. For the introductions, the advocacy, the energy, and for never letting anyone get away with not knowing what the BID could do for them. We wish you well in whatever comes next.
