Patrick Law, former Director of Corporate Affairs at Barratt Developments, has joined the BECG Group’s recently launched Building Safety Unit, a specialist team providing integrated counsel to clients across the built environment.
In addition to his role on the Building Safety Unit, Patrick will also officially sit on Cavendish Advocacy’s Advisory Council, a board of specialist senior counsel members providing expertise to Cavendish Advocacy's clients across sectors.
Patrick has over 25 years of communications experience across the housebuilding, social housing and energy sectors, and his appointment will further enhance the depth of the Building Safety Unit’s offer to clients.
The new Building Safety Unit was launched by BECG in February 2021 and provides crisis communications, specialist resident and community engagement, media relations and Government relations. It has already received external industry recognition with the team winning two national awards for crisis communication projects involving high profile building safety crisis in the South of England.
Commenting on Patrick’s appointment, Jennifer Riddell Carpenter, Director and lead of the Building Safety Unit said “We’re delighted to welcome Patrick to the BECG Group, in his new role as Strategic Counsel to our specialist Building Safety Unit. The depth of Patrick’s experience further enhances our strategic and business counsel for clients across the built environment, at a vital time for the sector.”
Patrick’s experience includes communications counsel for FTSE100 CEOs, issues management and risk mitigation. As Director of Corporate Affairs at Barratt Developments he led communications to national and local stakeholders, media and employees. He oversaw a step change in the company’s reputation including putting in place a major refresh of the organisation’s vision and priorities. More recently he led the communications function of the Guinness Partnership, one of the largest affordable housing providers.
In previous roles as Director of Communications at British Gas and Director of Public Affairs at Centrica, he gained significant experience of remodelling communication departments to increase their effectiveness.
Speaking on his appointment, Patrick commented “Building safety is the most important issue facing the housing industry today and the reputation of organisations in the sector will be determined by how they work with residents and stakeholders. Part of that is good communications and BECG Group’s Building Safety Unit is extremely well placed to provide expert counsel and support to the sector in getting this right. I am looking forward to joining a very talented team within the Building Safety Unit as they establish themselves as the go-to team for reputation issues for clients across the built environment.”