If you are a logistics company looking to relocate your operations, or are an investor seeking property, there’s no need to look any further than Northampton’s Brackmills Industrial Estate, a thriving logistics and transport estate set within the UK’s premier hub for logistics, known as the Golden Triangle of distribution.
Brackmills, as well as being home to big brands such as John Lewis, Panasonic, Dachser, Decathlon, Travis Perkins and igus, also attracts a diverse array of small and growing companies – everything from sign makers and printers to charities, chemical companies, nurseries and recruitment companies.
At the heart of the estate is its status as a thriving Business Improvement District (BID), an initiative which sees companies on Brackmills pool an annual levy and use this pot to fund a host of improvements – from infrastructure upgrades and security projects to landscaping and business support events and projects.
Investment and innovation
The latest news includes:
Development: the BID welcomes developments on the estate that enable a variety of businesses to call Brackmills their home. Proposals for a major development on Brackmills have been approved – with Newlands Developments securing outline planning permission to demolish the existing Howdens building on Liliput Road to provide new employment uses. The development ‘seeks to strike an appropriate balance between the need to provide new modern employment floorspace on a brownfield site with the requirement to protect and, where possible, enhance the existing environment’.
Recruitment: Brackmills Virtual Jobs Fair is an online space designed to promote vacancies, apprenticeships, and training opportunities and is constantly being updated with new vacancies. Most recently, the BID has added an abundance of new jobs at James and James Fulfilment. This provider of eCommerce fulfilment services to high-growth online brands recently signed a 10-year lease on Liberty 196 – which includes a mezzanine level and an operational space of 600,000 square feet. James and James was founded by University of Cambridge graduates, James Hyde and James Strachan, in 2010. The duo could not find a suitable modern fulfilment solution, so decided to build their own, now the world’s first digital-native fulfilment house, and based on Brackmills.
Online directory: by far the most popular page on the Brackmills website – revamped in the last few weeks – is the online directory. Each business listing includes a link to Google maps, which means you can not only find any company on the estate, you can also read all about them all.
Harnessing the power of training
Brackmills BID has partnered with employability specialists Career Catapult to equip businesses on the estate with bespoke training. This investment in training is part of the BID’s commitment to providing much needed support to businesses and employees.
BID Vice Chair, Charlotte Patrick, said: “COVID meant many of our planned projects had to be put on hold so, as restrictions lift, we are determined to give our businesses as much support as possible. Career Catapult’s LinkedIn training has been hugely popular and we have more planned.”
Northampton-based Career Catapult, which collaborates with businesses to support their staff and protect their reputation, offers everything from wellbeing and upskilling training programmes through to bespoke support for individuals going through the redundancy process.
James Gage, Director and Co-Founder of Career Catapult, said: “LinkedIn is probably the most powerful free tool available to businesses and individuals to grow their online presence and the key to differentiating yourself from your competition is building a personal brand. Supporting staff and employees on Brackmills is a real privilege.”
Top tips from Career Catapult:
As most people are more interested in following other people than they are in following specific companies, building an audience for your personal brand can help increase exposure for your company.
Your brand is what distinguishes you from your competitors, helping to form a lasting impression in the mind of your customers and prospective customers. Without a compelling personal brand that attracts your target audience, you may find yourself simply wasting time online.
Find out more about Brackmills at www.brackmillsindustrialestate.co.uk
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