Harcastle Environmental

Seat value: On 22 Apr 2026 Nicola Brearley said someone internally questioned forty paid seats against seven or eight daily users. She is not the signatory, and the Growth term runs to 10 Apr 2027.

Tolmere: Claire Ackroyd, new Integration Director, met Marcus Bell on 21 Apr 2026. The 28 Apr 2026 kickoff covered two new connectors and twenty more users, but neither she nor Nicola holds the budget.

Data quality: From 19 May 2026, Tolmere's data load created duplicate customer records, about 300 pairs. Matching rules were agreed with Imran Hussain, and Dominic Hale merged the duplicates on 10 Jun 2026, leaving a leftover list for Imran.

QBR: On 2 Jun 2026 about nine of forty licensed users were active on an average day. Andrew asked for the value in plain terms and a written business case, and Nicola and two senior account managers ask most questions, a key-person risk.

Expansion: On 16 Jun 2026 Andrew approved twenty additional users subject to final figures. On 22 Jun 2026 Lewis Kerr confirmed £6,225 plus VAT, co-termed to the renewal, and Owen Tallis warned of a step-up to the current list price at renewal.

Open at the end: Andrew said on 26 Jun 2026 he would sign on 30 Jun 2026, but no signed order form is shown. Connector headroom for the Tolmere ledger and the renewal figure were also unconfirmed.

Usage: On the 2 Jan 2026 check-in Nicola Brearley accepted usage was under five a day on 40 seats. On 13 Jan 2026 a helpdesk connector stopped syncing after the customer's helpdesk team rotated an API key; Imran Hussain supplied new credentials.

Renewal: On 7 Jan 2026 Andrew said he would not sign without a written business case. The 9 Jan 2026 notice queried £44k against the £40k contracted; no breakdown from Lewis Kerr appears in the thread.

Calls: The 14 Jan 2026 and 24 Feb 2026 calls repeated the demand, with about five and then seven of forty seats active. Lewis said the first-term discount ends at renewal and the price could not hold.

Acquisition: On 24 Feb 2026 news reported Harcastle agreeing to buy Tolmere Waste Services. On 3 Mar 2026 Nicola confidentially asked for Tolmere customers in the brain within a quarter of completion, with a ballpark cost.

Turn: At the 5 Mar 2026 QBR and 20 Mar 2026 check-in Nicola was positive, with usage rising. On 13 Mar 2026 Lewis sent the order form at £44k excluding VAT; Andrew said he was content with the business case.

Open at the end: No signed order form is shown. Invoice INV-152-0003 was issued on 30 Mar 2026, due 29 Apr 2026. Imran's connector headroom question and the Tolmere quote were unanswered.

Adoption: On 7 Oct 2025 Nicola Brearley said usage was up and spread wider, and planned a team-by-team rollout. She needed a case for the budget holder before the April renewal.

Renewal horizon: On the 31 Oct 2025 call Nicola wanted to keep the brain past April but would not commit budget. About a fifth of the forty seats were used daily, and North East account managers barely used it.

Praise: In the thread of 28 Oct 2025 Nicola said account managers use the brain more than she expected. On 21 Nov 2025 she asked to prepare for the renewal conversation with Andrew, as nothing is committed without him.

QBR: On 26 Nov 2025 Andrew asked what unused seats are worth. Nicola gave a three-part value case and promised numbers by January, and Marcus Bell deferred the price question to Lewis Kerr.

Follow-up: Marcus's summary of 27 Nov 2025 flagged the £40k Growth renewal on 10 Apr 2026. The thread shows no customer reply.

Late slip: On 30 Dec 2025 Marcus flagged lower usage from a small group. Nicola blamed a quiet fortnight and asked for a team session and usage by person.

Open at the end: No figure yet backed the value case, and Andrew had not confirmed anything. Price expectations were unanswered, and the commercial renewal terms had not been opened.

Check-ins: On 7 Jul 2025 Nicola Brearley called the single customer view what she bought it for and asked for vehicle and crew data from the routing system. Marcus Bell flagged the April renewal at £40k a year.

Value case: On 11 Aug 2025 Nicola said six people and a care home story was not a business case for her managing director. She cannot commit budget alone, and Lewis was to be told of the call.

QBR: On 2 Sep 2025 the review showed no tickets and invoices paid on time, but a handful of users out of forty. Lewis Kerr confirmed Growth at £40k a year, term to 10 Apr 2026, and said he would not push extras.

CFO: On 3 Sep 2025 Andrew Sugden asked how many of the forty users are active weekly and what adding the rest costs. Marcus said users inside the forty cost nothing extra, with no exact split yet.

Support: On 4 Sep 2025 Imran Hussain reported duplicate customer records after a reindex broke merging by site ID. Olivia Grant escalated to the platform team. On 23 Sep 2025 a cosmetic dashboard legend bug was scheduled for the next build.

Open at the end: On 29 Sep 2025 Nicola wanted Imran's ticket sorted, with its fix and owner, before anything new. She also asked for site-based search. The usage split and a depot and round view were still owed.

Contract: The Growth order form was signed on 11 Apr 2025 at £40k a year for 40 users. Invoice INV-152-0002, net £40k, was due 11 May 2025, with no customer response in the thread.

Kickoff: On 16 Apr 2025 four sources were put first and the call recorder last. Helen Dyson raised data access and a leavers process, and Laura Penhaligon would not promise dates until the route planning export is seen.

Onboarding: Calls on 24 Apr 2025, 1 May 2025, 6 May 2025, 14 May 2025, 21 May 2025 and 27 May 2025 agreed a staged order of sources. Imran Hussain tests each source and held back invitations until the customer page is trusted.

Value risk: On 1 May 2025 usage was about one person a day against 40 licences. On 6 May 2025 Nicola Brearley said she feared being unable to show in six months what the brain is worth.

Training: The two sessions on 2 Jun 2025 built a Repeat missed collections dashboard. Daily use was two or three people, usage was flat, and a three-person pilot was agreed.

Support: On 22 May 2025 three account managers were locked out by a role mapping fault on the BG-Demo side. On 23 Jun 2025 Nicola reported a dashboard counter bug, logged by Connor Webb.

Open at the end: Finance was still held back, duplicate customer ids were unresolved, and the third locked-out user's outcome is not shown. The value case for the budget holders was still unproven.

Discovery: On 10 Jan 2025 Nicola Brearley described a missed-collection complaint spread across three systems. Lewis Kerr confirmed Growth and a decision date of Fri 28 Mar 2025, with a working figure of £52k.

CFO: The same day Andrew Sugden said he needed the subscription and implementation split before writing a business case. The thread shows no reply to that request.

Demo: On 27 Jan 2025 Anya Petrova demoed on Harcastle's own extracts. Imran Hussain asked for connector limits in writing and flagged a customer id mismatch and planned changes to round coding.

Proposal: On 20 Feb 2025 Nicola confirmed Growth but could not commit budget alone. On 21 Feb 2025 her budget holder asked for more time, and she asked for a named owner for connector fixes.

Negotiation: On 10 Mar 2025 Owen Tallis refused any price movement and offered quarterly invoicing, which Andrew accepted. Andrew would not sign before the business case and a written estimate of Harcastle's own IT time.

Signing: On 11 Mar 2025 only Nicola replied to the status summary. The order form went out on 26 Mar 2025, and by 31 Mar 2025 Andrew wanted two written answers on full cost and first-phase customers.

Open at the end: The order form was unsigned, so the 28 Mar 2025 target was missed. Invoice INV-152-0001 (gross £14k, due 30 Apr 2025) was issued on 31 Mar 2025 with a PO query unanswered.

News: the period holds one read, a Yorkshire Business Gazette item of 5 Aug 2024. It reported that Harcastle Environmental confirmed layoffs following a review of how it is organised.

Detail: the item gave no number of roles, no affected areas and no timetable. It does not say whether account teams or data roles are involved.

Read for the account: the read treats it as a restructuring signal of low significance and neutral importance. The risk it names is that reduced headcount could shrink the number of active users, though nothing shows which roles are affected.

Open at the end: the effect of the layoffs on users or champions was not established. The read suggests checking at the next call whether the layoffs changed who uses the brain. No calls, emails or tickets in the period show the customer's own view.