Practicable Advisory Solutions. The name is the brief.

Patrick has spent more than twenty-five years in commercial construction, mostly on the building envelope side — fenestration, curtain walling and the structural detail behind them. The work ran from early design intent through to final sign-off on site, which is where he got comfortable with the part most people find tedious: CDM duties, method statements that match the actual sequence of work, and being able to show who decided what, and when.

Some of it was a long way from Kent. In the UAE he led the move of a twenty-four-hour production facility into new premises without stopping fabrication. In South Africa he ran the uPVC and aluminium profile manufacturing and installation side of a Dutch EPS producer alongside business improvement work. Years spent with German and Belgian manufacturing and supply partners taught him that most project problems are really people not talking to each other in time.

What that adds up to day to day is someone who has stood on both sides of the fence — the contractor being asked for the paperwork, and the client trying to work out whether it is any good. He is easy to talk to, hard to fluster, and far more interested in getting a job to run smoothly than in being the cleverest person in the room.

Joanne came up through kitchens and is a working head chef, so when she talks about production, ordering, allergens or what happens on a genuinely bad Saturday, it comes from behind the pass rather than out of a manual. That is the difference owners tend to notice first.

Her career has taken in some demanding rooms — hospitality service within the Houses of Parliament, and commercial catering across the education and premium care sectors, where standards are watched closely and there is very little room for improvisation. HACCP, allergen control, COSHH and food safety records are ordinary daily work to her, not an annual panic before an inspection.

She is warm with kitchen teams and straight with owners, which turns out to be the combination that gets things changed. Staff tell her what actually happens on a Friday night, and that is usually where the real risk is hiding — not in the folder.