Director Spotlight – Meet Charlotte Patrick
Charlotte has been part of the estate's story since before the BID existed. We caught up with her to hear how Brackmills has changed over the past two decades…
From the Wild West to a thriving business community
Charlotte first came to Brackmills in the mid-2000s, working for Invest Northamptonshire, an organisation tasked with attracting and retaining employers in the county. Part of her role involved speaking to businesses on Brackmills, many of whom were considering leaving the estate.
What she found was an estate with a difficult reputation, known locally as a hotspot for lorry crime. With no CCTV or ANPR in place, businesses were regularly losing goods, and there was little control over how or where vehicles parked.
“People felt they were on Brackmills but had been forgotten about,” Charlotte recalls. “You’d see lorries left for days on end with no facilities for drivers, so it wasn’t uncommon to find makeshift showers or waste left by the bins. It wasn’t a nice place to be, and if there had been an incident, emergency vehicles wouldn’t have been able to get through to certain areas of the estate.”
Charlotte and colleagues brought businesses together to talk about the issues, eventually securing funding for CCTV and ANPR across the estate. One of the conditions of that funding was finding a sustainable way to pay for its ongoing monitoring and maintenance, and it was this that led to the creation of Brackmills BID.
“I’d never heard of a BID before that,” she says. “We put together a business plan, spoke to companies and employees about what mattered to them, and went through the whole process. Businesses voted yes – which was a bit of a shock at the time – and the BID was born and has continued to grow from there.”
The work that often goes unseen
Nearly two decades on, Charlotte is keen to highlight just how much the BID does that businesses may not always see or connect back to their annual levy. Alongside the CCTV and ANPR that were there from the start, the BID funds verge cutting, street lighting, landscaping and green spaces, additional winter gritting, additional security and a dedicated PCSO for the estate.
“The BID was never designed to replicate statutory services, it’s about providing over and above,” Charlotte explains. “Winter gritting might seem simple, but it enables vehicles to get on and off the estate safely. Cutting back vegetation on footpaths and cycle routes sounds minor too, but it affects how people get to work every single day.”
Building a genuine business community
For Charlotte, the achievement she is proudest of is not any single piece of infrastructure, but the sense of community that has grown across the estate. What began as a handful of businesses discussing shared problems has become a network of neighbours who know and support one another.
“There is a community on Brackmills now that never used to exist,” she says. “One of my favourite examples is from years ago, when two neighbouring businesses got talking at a meeting. Not long after, one of them had a high reach forklift go down over a weekend. Because of that connection, they were able to borrow one from next door and keep working until a service engineer could get out. That’s the beauty of the BID, it’s the little things that come from people simply knowing each other.”
Business continuity at the heart of everything
Business continuity has been a focus for the BID since its earliest days, having been set up not long after a major fire closed part of the estate for over a week. Charlotte remembers neighbouring businesses opening their offices and canteens to support those affected and the emergency services on site, an experience that shaped much of the BID’s continuity work that followed.
Keeping Brackmills safe and operational, whatever the estate faces, remains a core priority. From protecting supply chains to supporting businesses that operate around the clock, every day of the year, ensuring continuity across an estate of this scale is no small task.
“We support companies through floods, fires, water loss and all sorts of other emergencies,” says Charlotte. “It’s about helping businesses prepare for the unexpected as well as recover from it, so that whatever happens, Brackmills keeps moving.”
A message to every business on the estate: talk to us
Brackmills is home to an enormous range of organisations, from family founded and run businesses to multinational logistics giants, alongside sports facilities and social spaces that bring people together. Whatever their size or sector, Charlotte’s message to all of them is the same.
“Get involved, sign up to our alerts, come to our forums, and talk to us,” she says. “You’ll get information even if you can’t make a meeting, and it’s often through those conversations that problems get solved. Even if it’s a challenge the BID itself can’t fix, more often than not someone across our network of businesses and neighbours will have the answer, or at least point you in the right direction.”
What keeps Charlotte committed
Charlotte’s reasons for staying involved after more than twenty years are rooted in something personal. She still remembers going out in the early days to photograph the estate, with a colleague following behind in a car because it wasn’t considered safe to walk around Brackmills alone.
“I still drive or walk around now and think, look what we’ve achieved,” she says. “Back then it really was dire, and I don’t ever want to see us go back to that. We’ve achieved so much, but there’s always more to do, and I want to keep that momentum going.”
