Housing secretary to speak at HMI conference

Housing secretary James Brokenshire is to address the industry at this year’s Housing Market Intelligence conference, joining a strong line up including experts from industry, finance and the political world.

Brokenshire was appointed to his post in April following the promotion of Sajid Javid to home secretary and this will be one of his first opportunities to get his message over to housebuilders.

He will be joined at the conference by Liberal Democrat leader Sir Vince Cable who will give his take on the political challenge of housing, plus leading figures from the housebuilding industry, including Barratt ceo David Thomas, Homes England ceo Nick Walkley and HBF executive chairman Stewart Baseley.

Nationwide Building Society chief executive Joe Garner will tackle the mortgage market, Mark Farmer of Cast will look at skills and MMC and David Inskip of CBRE will provide the market forecasts.

HMI, which will be held in London on Thursday October 11, will also feature an expert session on changes to the planning system, chaired by HBF planning director Andrew Whitaker and including head of the Planning Advisory Service Anna Rose and planning expert Catriona Riddell.

With the environment for the new homes sector ever changing, HMI …