March 23rd 2023
‘London Housing - Facing the Challenges Head on’
8:00am Prompt - 11:45am finish
Venue
The Savoy
Strand
London
WC2R 0EZ
Tel: 020 7836 4343
View Website
£125.00 + VAT
Trialist / Guest rate
£155.00 + VAT
Branded Table of 10 (for members)
all places at members rate £1,250.00 + VAT
Movers & Shakers Property Breakfast Club.
Our Movers & Shakers Breakfast Forums are back…. at The Savoy 
Breakfast Format:
8.00am – 8.30am – Registration and Networking drinks.
8.30am – 11.15am – Full English Breakfast and Content sessions.
11.15am – 11.45am – Networking Café - more networking… more coffee…
‘THE WHO’S WHO IN UK PROPERTY’
We are delighted to announce that we are re-commencing our highly popular, breakfast forums (The Movers & Shakers Property Breakfast Club); with contributions from senior private and public sector leaders, and the most valued delegate lists in the Real Estate Industry! With plenty of networking time, and a full English breakfast in The Savoy’s most elegant and iconic ballroom.
Topic: ‘London Housing – Facing the challenges head on’
Every Borough in London except the City of London has a higher proportion of households living in temporary accommodation than the average across all councils in the rest of England. Q1 2022 [Trust for London].
Recent publicity around the condition of homes also highlights the poor quality and maintenance of some of the UK’s housing stock. Overriding this is the need to retrofit existing housing to meet net-zero emission targets by 2050. Housing Associations, already struggling to build anywhere near the level of affordable homes face a real dilemma. According to the stats, London requires 66,000 homes per annum; two thirds of which need to be affordable. This means, that c. 283,000 homes need to be built to clear the backlog!!!!
In short, London faces a huge housing challenge – to deliver the quantity and quality of homes, set against a backdrop of a year of political instability, with a burdensome planning and regulatory system, the high cost of the debt, raised construction costs, a race to retrofit existing stock to achieve carbon neutrality and a steep rise in the cost of living; How can London possibly house it’s population in: affordable homes, with good living standards, that create equitable health / well-being opportunities? As environmental and social sustainability sits top of the agency (and rightly so), the London Real Estate Industry needs to navigate all of this, to achieve the shared goal of ‘quality homes for everyone’.
A Keynote address, will be followed by two panel sessions:
Panel Session 1 - ‘Making Existing Housing Better’
Focused on retrofit; the challenges of making existing housing stock ‘better’; and the routes to funding and delivering net-zero carbon homes.
· Fiona Fletcher Smith – Chief Executive, L&Q
· Ben Denton – Managing Director, L&G Affordable Homes
· Ric Blakeway – Housing Ombudsman
· Clare Miller – Group Chief Executive, Clarion Housing
· Cllr Promise Knight - Cabinet Member for Housing, Homelessness and Renters Security, Brent Council
· David Lunts - Chief Executive Officer, Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation [CHAIR]
Panel Session 2 - ‘Building More & Better Homes’
Delivering new homes; affordability; the realities and difficulties of building housing in London; the need for public and private sector collaboration; alongside a coherent, consistent and conductive regulatory and taxation environment.
· Ailish Christian-West – Chief Operating Officer, Get Living
· Tom Copley – Deputy Mayor for Housing, GLA
· Kate Ives – Strategic Growth Director, Countryside Partnerships
· Jennet Siebrits – Head of UK Research, CBRE
· Jonathan Seal – Chief Executive Officer, Regal London
· Claire Dutch - Practice Group Head, UK, Real Estate, Ashurst [CHAIR]
EVENT SPEAKERS
Jennet Siebrits
Head of UK Research
CBRE
Jennet is an economist with over twenty five years’ experience. Jennet joined CBRE 18 years ago to set up the residential research team. For the past three years she has also taken over responsibility for the commercial research teams. She focuses on the big issues in the real estate world, identifying trends, analysing the market, and providing clients with unrivalled insight and ideas. Jennet regularly produces bespoke reports for clients that help inform their strategic decision-making process.
In addition, she produces a wide-ranging programme of thought leadership looking at issues such as placemaking, premium pricing and the impact of regeneration. Jennet spends a significant amount of time presenting to clients (developer and buyers) to keep them up to date with market developments.
Fiona Fletcher-Smith
Chief Executive
L&Q
Fiona was appointed as L&Q’s Chief Executive in September 2020. A chartered surveyor, with almost 30 years of experience in the housing sector, Fiona has worked in a variety of voluntary and public sector roles including advising homeless people in Dublin, housing management, development and regeneration, strategy and policy development.
Fiona was previously L&Q’s Director of Development and Sales, spearheading a £5.1 billion development programme. Whilst in this role, Fiona led our development and strategic land programmes, including landmark projects such as the 10,800-home Barking Riverside development. She also oversaw the group’s expansion beyond the South East and delivered change programmes to improve both the efficiency and diversity of our Development and Sales function.
Prior to joining L&Q, Fiona was Executive Director for Development, Enterprise and Environment at the Greater London Authority (GLA). As part of their senior management team, Fiona was responsible for overseeing the delivery and implementation of key strategies such as the London Plan and overseeing the operation of the Mayor’s powers in relation to significant planning applications in the capital.
Fiona is the current chair of trustees at the Centre for London, helping the capital’s think tank to meet their charitable objectives.
Ben Denton
Managing Director
L&G Affordable Homes
Ben Denton is Managing Director of L&G Affordable Homes. L&G Affordable Homes’ set up in 2018 with an ambitious business plan to develop 3,000 affordable homes pa by 2022 alongside building a best in class customer services experience. L&G are investing patient, long-term capital in order to grow the capacity of the affordable housing sector and in so doing, deliver societally important outcomes. L&G Affordable Homes sits alongside L&G’s other housing businesses including BTR, Modular, Cala and Inspired Villages Group. Prior to L&G, Ben held a number of positions in the public and private sectors, delivering residential led development and regeneration.
Clare Miller
Group Chief Executive
Clarion Housing
Clare has been our Group Chief Executive since 2018. She is a chartered accountant with almost 30 years’ experience in the housing sector. Clare joined the Housing Corporation in 1992 as a financial regulator. Over the next 18 years progressed to become its Director of Regulation.
She then became an Executive Director at the Tenant Services Authority, with responsibility for housing association regulation. In 2010 Clare joined Affinity Sutton as Group Director of Governance and Compliance. She took up the same role at Clarion in 2016, before taking on her current role two years later.
Ric Blakeway
Housing Ombudsman
Richard was appointed as Housing Ombudsman from 1 September 2019. He has extensive experience in the housing sector, with previous roles including Deputy Mayor of London for Housing, chair of the Homes for London board and a non-executive director of Homes England.
During his eight years at the Greater London Authority, Richard was responsible for housing investment and land generation programmes. He also led the creation of the first team at City Hall to address rough sleeping, commissioning around £10 million of services each year, as well as the first Social Impact Bond on homelessness.
Richard is a former board member of the Chartered Institute of Housing and has been an election observer in Somaliland and Ukraine. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and sits on the Administrative Justice Council.
Richard also chairs the Ombudsman Association and is a board member of the British Library.
Cllr Promise Knight
Cabinet Member for Housing, Homelessness and Renters Security
Brent Council
Cllr Promise Knight is Cabinet Lead Member for Housing, Homelessness and Renters’ Security at Brent Council where she has strategic oversight over a range of housing services, including Brent’s private housing strategy and renters’ support. Promise has worked for a number of Parliamentarians in both Houses of Parliament, and at Citizens UK as a Community Organiser responsible for civic engagement.
David Lunts
Chief Executive Officer
Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation
David Lunts was appointed as the permanent Chief Executive Officer of Old Oak and Park Royal Development in January 2021.
He had previously been the interim Chief Executive Officer for OPDC since February 2019, and combined his work on London’s largest Opportunity Area with his duties as Executive Director of Housing and Land for the Greater London Authority.
Between 2009-2012 David led as the Executive Director for London at the Homes and Communities Agency. His earlier career included three years at the GLA as Executive Director of Policy and Partnerships under Ken Livingstone, a leading role in housing and regeneration with Manchester City Council during the 1980s and early 90s and a three-year spell as director of Urban Policy for John Prescott at the former Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.
Ailish Christian-West
Chief Operating Officer
Get Living
Ailish is Chief Operating Officer at Get Living, responsible for the performance of Get Living’s circa £3bn build-to-rent neighbourhood portfolio and the development pipeline portfolio of a potential 6,500 homes. She leads Get Livings ESG agenda and supports industry collaboration on a broad range of issues. Ailish has been with Get Living since 2020 supporting a rapid growth in the business and leading on operational efficiencies and customer experience strategies.
Prior to Get Living, Ailish enjoyed 12 years at Landsec, laterally as an executive committee member responsible for portfolio management and portfolio operations. At Landsec she led key strategic initiatives, creating significant portfolio value and repositioned the retail business to exit the secondary shopping centre sector ahead of a significant decline in market values. She also spent ten years in fund management, running core plus and opportunistic funds including at La Salle Investment Management.
Tom Copley
Deputy Mayor for Housing
GLA
Tom has been on the London Assembly as a London-wide List member since May 2012, and was re-elected in 2016. He served as Chair of the Assembly’s housing committee and as Labour Group housing spokesperson up until 2020.
In February 2020 it was announced that Sadiq Khan would appoint Tom as Deputy Mayor for Housing.
On the Assembly he has raised concerns about the lack of housing supply across all tenures, rents and conditions in the private rented sector and the increase in rough sleeping. As someone with a long-standing love for the arts, Tom has also been an advocate for London’s small theatres. His Centre Stage report led to the launch of the London Theatres Small Grants Scheme in August 2015.
Prior to his election to the Assembly, Tom worked for Hope not hate - an anti-fascist, anti-racist charity that works with communities to fight racism and hatred.
Kate Ives
Strategic Growth Director
Countryside Partnerships
Kate is a geographer, town planner, housing practitioner, and social impact champion. Her work centres around housing delivery but a significant part of that is wider regeneration on major city projects such as Beam Park in Barking and Clapham Park in Lambeth. Kate’s centre of gravity is always directed towards supporting and helping others at a community level, and she does that through active management of the social value impact teams that she runs. Her role sees her working with the public sector to deliver long term regeneration on public land, working in partnership with local Councils, housing associations and local community groups. She also represents Countryside on JV project boards and supports good governance practice.
Claire Dutch
Practice Group Head, UK, Real Estate
Ashurst
Claire has been described in the legal directories as a “leader in the field of planning”. She specialises on all aspects of contentious and non-contentious planning law. She helps clients on strategy and policy at the inception of a development scheme, planning applications, environmental impact assessment, planning agreements, the community infrastructure levy and appeals and judicial review.
Claire has advised the public and private sector on some of the country’s most notable and iconic development and infrastructure projects. She has featured in The Lawyer’s “Hot 100” and numerous polls of influential people in the planning industry. She is the Vice Chair of the British Property Federation’s planning committee and a member of the Oxford Joint Planning Law Conference Committee.
Jonathan Seal
Chief Executive Officer
Regal London
Jonathan Seal started his career as a trainee solicitor with Lovell White Durrant in 1997, qualifiying into the corporate finance department specialising in M&A and private equity. He subsequently moved away from the law into investment banking and then went on to spend 20+ years in private equity, latterly as a partner at Nova Capital, managing their European secondary business.
Jonathan joined Regal London in 2016 as a Non-Executive Director to spearhead its strategic growth plans and subsequently moved into a full time role, now as Chief Executive Officer. Jonathan is also a Non Executive Director of Modulous, an early stage proptech company.
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