UkReiff has quickly become the ‘go to’ conference for investors, developers, local authorities and others generally interested in how we keep the built environment moving in the UK. The second year of the conference and once again back in Leeds, the extent of events and opportunities has increased hugely, and the attendance showed that.
Having attended last year, of course the timing this year meant my attendance was literally dependent upon the ballot box. Several events were in the diary, and much to my surprise and pleasure, I was invited to contribute to two of them anyway. It seems you don’t need to be the leader to be a leader in this field, and I hope I didn’t disappoint!
Tuesday morning, I spoke at an event hosted by CT Group on planning. Now as I admitted, I have managed to avoid sitting on or attending planning for the entirety of my 13 years as councillor, however having been involved with numerous projects, perhaps enabled me to give a less technical but more strategic view on where the power lies in the planning system. I suspect this will be a subject I return to in the near future, especially around the debate about brown and green field development, and the challenges of viability.
The following morning was however bizarrely perhaps the highlight of my political career, at a point when it is entering a slightly different trajectory. The invite to take part in an ‘In conversation with Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart’ has landed earlier in the year, and led to a bit of surprise, not least as The Rest Is Politics may be entertaining but is possibly not where I should be aiming my political career. However, reassured it would be about regeneration, and of course without the shackles of leadership now, I took to the stage with Georgia Gould, leader of Camden, and Robert Evans from Related Argent.
The follow up article from Megan Kenyon in the Local Government Chronicle gives you a good flavour of the conversation, which bubbled along about regeneration, politics and a variety of other things. It had been billed as the ‘hot ticket’ event of the three days, and alongside the excellent feedback, the knowledge that you can be a ‘political giant’ even as you contemplate what happens next, was definitely as reassuring as the interest in development and making it happen that the conference highlighted.
