Parklane Health Care is a group of care homes in the North of England, largely in Yorkshire, and one in Lancashire. We are a family company, 17 years we’ve been operating care homes, and prior to that I was a commercial finance broker in the healthcare sector.

I did a Dementia Studies degree in my spare time, and I didn’t do it for a better job or to get a better CV or higher pay – I’m the chairman.  I did it because I wanted to understand what the residents living with dementia were going through. It’s not just a private company, making money as a business. It is a business, but it’s a caring business.

For Lavender Fields Care Village Limited, the idea was to be able to put everything we’ve learned into it from the ground up, which is massive rooms, lovely ensuite shower facilities, loads of day space, and lots of entertainment on-site to allow people not to have to go to the high street but the high street comes to them.

We went to OakNorth because it was formed by an entrepreneur for entrepreneurs. We had the ability to actually speak to the entire credit lending committee where you can actually pitch your ideas and your dreams and aspirations face to face with the person signing off the check. For us that’s priceless. Very smooth process. A lot of good transparency with the lawyers and the accountants and everybody. The team OakNorth jumped on everything the minute that we sent it through. They had the refreshing attitude from the start, they gave me three minutes to say why they should be lending to me. I love that.

They boasted to us the turnaround was quick. We were sceptical, sometimes as a businessman you can be a cynic, but boy were they quick. They really did jump on everything really really fast. Very, very unique in the banking sector I promise you.