Brackmills Hero – Meet Doug Poynton
Congratulations to Doug on being nominated as our latest Brackmills Hero
Doug Poynton is Community Manager at Decathlon, one of Brackmills’ most well-known residents. But a job title doesn’t come close to capturing what Doug actually brings to the estate and the wider community. Since stepping into the role four years ago, he has thrown himself into building a genuine sense of connection, rallying businesses, schools and clubs around a shared belief that sport and sustainability can bring people and communities together. His energy is infectious, his ideas keep coming, and his commitment to the Brackmills community is the reason he is a Brackmills Hero.
Getting the whole world active
Decathlon has a bold global ambition: to get two billion people active by 2035 – a quarter of the world’s population. It is a mission Doug has made his own. Working with local schools, he shares the Decathlon story: Covering 95 different sports and manufacturing around 90% of what it sells, they pledge to keep prices low enough to make sport genuinely accessible to everyone.
Nothing goes to waste
Sustainability is central to everything Decathlon does, and Doug is its most enthusiastic local ambassador. The company sends nothing to landfill – not a thing. Returned products are assessed, repaired and either resold through Decathlon’s Second Life platform or donated. Damaged paddle boards get fixed. Festival tents, collected after events through the ‘No Tent Left Behind’ initiative, are recycled into bags for life. Garments that cannot be resold go to the Hope Centre or to university students, who turn them into new products as part of their fashion curriculum.
Then there are the tennis balls. Balls used at in-store events cannot be resold as new, so rather than letting them go to waste, Doug distributes them to local schools. This year alone he has handed out around 2,000. Footballs and other sports equipment with minor marks follow the same route.
“I’m very popular at the moment,” he laughs. “Everybody wants balls.”
Fundraising, football and thinking pink
Doug has also been behind some of Decathlon’s community fundraising on Brackmills. Last year, working with Charlotte and the local Northamptonshire Committee at Crimestoppers, he organised a charity football tournament on site and six teams took part. This year it moved to the university, grew to twelve teams, and is already being planned again for 2027.
Internally, Decathlon raised around £1,400 for a local breast cancer charity last year through an online auction of handmade items created by warehouse staff. This year, Doug has a bigger idea: a pink walk open to the whole of Brackmills, with everyone dressed in pink, raising money for a local breast cancer charity as they make their way from the estate to the university and back.
“It doesn’t cost anything to organise,” he says. “Just turn up, wear pink, go for a walk and come back. But imagine the whole of Brackmills walking through the estate in pink. What a sight that would be.”
A familiar face at BID events
Even when his own role shifted away from HR and recruitment, Doug kept turning up to BID forums – health and safety, wellbeing, general meetings. For him, it is about being part of the community.
“In the four years I’ve been involved with Charlotte, Sara and the BID team, I’ve seen the incredible work they do – and a lot of it goes unnoticed. The more businesses get involved, the better it is for everyone. We all work here, we all spend so much time here. We should all be making it better together.
“I’d say to any business that hasn’t yet got involved: just come along. The BID team do an amazing job with a small team. We can make their work so much easier if more of us show up.”
Congratulations Doug, and thank you. The Brackmills community is better for having someone like you in it.
