{"id":271,"date":"2019-12-03T14:35:37","date_gmt":"2019-12-03T14:35:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/sustainable-planning-and-environments\/?p=271"},"modified":"2019-12-03T14:35:40","modified_gmt":"2019-12-03T14:35:40","slug":"at-the-heart-of-the-housing-discussion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/sustainable-planning-and-environments\/at-the-heart-of-the-housing-discussion\/","title":{"rendered":"At the heart of the housing discussion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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….by Adam Sheppard<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the 14th<\/sup> November UWE Bristol proudly\nco-hosted the 20th<\/sup> Bristol Planning Law and Policy Conference.  This annual event was designed, as many good\nideas are, over a pint of beer in a pub. \nThe thinking was that many notable events around planning and planning\nlaw were focused around London plus locations including Oxford and Birmingham, whilst\nBristol, a regional centre and base for much planning and law activity, had\nlittle of comparable scale and resonance. The conference is a partnership\nbetween UWE Bristol, Clarke Willmott, JLL, and Jan Molyneux (a retired but\nstill very active planning consultant) and has included other notable persons,\nmost recently Bryan Smith (another retired but still very active planning\nconsultant). Always with the intention of ensuring balance and perspective; the\nconference aims to ensure insights are diverse and embrace contested spaces to\ncreate dialogue, debate, and progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year\u2019s event took place in The Passenger Shed in\nBrunel\u2019s Old Station at Bristol Temple Meads Railway Station. The list of\nfamous people associated with Bristol is as long as it is diverse including, to\nname just a few, such greats as Sir Bernard Lovell, the bands Portishead and\nMassive Attack, actors Cary Grant, John Challis, and David Prowse, Damien\nHurst, the comedians Russell Howard, Lee Evans, John Cleese (is he still a\ncomedian?), and Stephen Merchant, three(!) actors in a show I have never seen\nbut gather is a big deal called \u2018Game of Thrones\u2019 (Maise Williams, Jacob\nAnderson, and Hannah Murray), medical pioneer Elizabeth Blackwell, James May,\nBanksy, stars of sport Ian Holloway, Jo Durie and Gary Mabbutt, and not\nforgetting Laura Crane who, according to my wife, has been on something called\n\u2018Love Island\u2019. Brunel was actually born in Portsmouth but has been adopted by\nBristol.  This magnificent venue was\nbuilt between 1839\u201341 for the Great Western Railway (GWR) and was designed to\naccommodate Brunel’s 7 ft broad gauge railway design, typifying both Brunel and\nBristol in being innovative, creative, progressive, and different to what is\notherwise seen as the norm. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Final preparations for a day of insight and discussion<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The 2019 conference was proud to host as speaker Adam\nChallis (JLL), Kevin Parker (Redrow Homes), Cllr Paul Smith (Bristol City\nCouncil), James Maurici QC (Landmark Chambers), Mark Southgate (MOBIE), Mike\nGrist (Curo), Emma Webster (Lifestory Group), Theo Backhouse (Backhouse Housing),\nTom Brewerton (Unite Students), and Lin Cousins (Three Dragons).  The calibre of these speakers is notable of\ncourse, but so too was the theme \u2013 housing delivery.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the UK the housing topic has come to dominate planning in\nmany respects.  The affordability\nchallenge is perhaps most notable for many areas of the UK, and particularly\nthe south.  The delivery of affordable\nhousing, not affordable housing as now defined by Government via a definition\nas broad as Brunel\u2019s tracks but genuinely affordable housing, is one of the key\nissues of our time. The challenge arguably still revolves around Thatcher\u2019s\nRight to Buy policy from 1980 and, in particular, the inability to effectively\nreplace genuine social housing stock ever since.  How we now respond to this challenge is a\nmatter of some debate, but a comprehensive response is certainly needed and\nhopefully after the next General Election progress can be made on this matter,\nassuming our nation can otherwise stop imploding and start moving forward\nagain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Content with currency and pertinence<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Affordability is only one issue though. The supply challenge\nis almost universal. Homeless is unacceptable yet commonplace. Meeting the\nneeds of the elderly and those with particular housing requirements is complex\nand have their own affordability challenges. \nAnd the market itself presents challenges to all house builders, but\nparticularly the small and medium sized companies.  Our speakers spoke to all these challenges, and\nmore, in a conference with too many highlights to mention.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the conference a black tie dinner is held.  This part of the event has become infamous\nfor selling out quicker than Glastonbury as our dinner host, Professor Martin\nBoddy from UWE Bristol, noted in his address*. \nThe after dinner speaker this year was the excellent Dr Phil Hammond who\nmanaged to be as funny as he was poignant and challenging. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Preparing for an evening of networking in the grandeur of Brunel’s architecture<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Having an event in Bristol of this scale and importance only\nreally matters because of what it can achieve; it has no value in being\nself-serving, the conference must exist to raise challenging subjects and\nstimulate debate.  In doing this, in some\nsmall way, it can help move matters forward in a positive way.  UWE Bristol is proud to be part of this\nevent, and I am personally proud to have represented UWE Bristol on the\norganising committee these last half dozen years.  As we move forward I am now handing the UWE\nBristol baton over to my colleague Nick Smith, meaning we can all rest assured\nthe event will only get bigger and better. Look out for tickets for next year \u2013\nexcitingly involving a new location at Ashton Gate Stadium!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*I am contractually obliged to note that the dinner only\nexists to further the opportunities for conference discussion and debate\u2026 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

….by Adam Sheppard On the 14th November UWE Bristol proudly co-hosted the 20th Bristol Planning Law and Policy Conference.  This annual event was designed, as many good ideas are, over a pint of beer in a pub.  The thinking was that many notable events around planning and planning law were focused around London plus locations … Continue reading “At the heart of the housing discussion”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/sustainable-planning-and-environments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/sustainable-planning-and-environments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/sustainable-planning-and-environments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/sustainable-planning-and-environments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/sustainable-planning-and-environments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/sustainable-planning-and-environments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":278,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/sustainable-planning-and-environments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271\/revisions\/278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/sustainable-planning-and-environments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/sustainable-planning-and-environments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/sustainable-planning-and-environments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}