The HBF Wales Conference and Dinner took place on 16 November at The Angel Hotel, Cardiff with more than 80 attendees. The conference commenced at 4pm and was followed by a three-course dinner, providing delegates with the perfect opportunity to network with HBF members from across Wales. The full agenda and presentations are above.
The event was opened by Peter Andrew’s deputy chairman of HBF who started by paying tribute to Carl Sargeant former Minister for Housing and Planning and his work with the industry over a number of years. He went on to talk about the current issues facing the industry and some of the future work that HBF were likely to be involved with. On a more positive note he also discussed the success of Help to Buy Wales and the fact that there was still a strong need/demand for more new homes to be built in Wales. He finally referred to the latest HBF Wales report entitled ‘ You’ve got the power’ (provide link) which shows that purchasers of new homes in Wales save £806 per year on energy costs.
Peter was followed by the first speaker of the evening Lawrence Bowles from Savills who gave a detailed and interesting view of the housing marketing, both in Wales and the rest of the UK. He not only looking at how accurate Savills predictions for 2017 had been but also at their future predictions up to and beyond 2020. In summary although house price growth is unlikely to remain at current levels, Wales is likely to outperform many of the other UK regions. The final speaker Shelia Davis Programme Director for the Cardiff Capital Region (CCR) City Deal provide a useful update on what progress there had been to date and how the house building industry might best contribute to the CCR City Deal. Of particular interest was the positive news that there was a clear understanding of the need to provide more new homes to support the economic growth ambitions of the region, although this wasn’t necessarily something currently supported by all Politian’s. The speakers were followed by a short Q&A session which raised a number of interesting topics.
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Speakers
