Sheffield Property Association at UKREiiF

We’ve now had chance to decompress and reflect on another fantastic week in Leeds for this year’s UKREiiF. Sheffield Property Association was well-represented by members of the board, as well as by representatives from our member organisations. 

The event has fast become the number one place for UK property professionals, bringing people from across the industry in both the public and private sectors. It’s an amazing opportunity to catch up with familiar faces and meet even more new ones. 

Kicking off proceedings was the Regional Leaders Lunch at Glassbox, which brought together devolved leaders and mayors from across the UK alongside local and government voices to share their ambitions and the challenges facing their regions. Ending day one was a drinks reception with the chief executives and leaders from across South Yorkshire as well as South Yorkshire Mayoral Authority for a drinks reception at New Dock Hall Stand.

We hosted a fantastic breakfast event at Arup’s impressive Wellington Place offices where we showcased our report looking at the economic impact of post-COVID working practices on our core cities. Chaired by Martin McKervey, the session opened with Karl Dalgleish and Cassie Houlden from Kada Research discussing their findings within the report, touching on working from home patterns, and what recommendations can be made by employers and public bodies to encourage workers back into the office. 

Following this was a thought-provoking Q&A with a panel consisting of Arup’s Tom Bridges, Sheffield City Council’s Kate Josephs, New York City Economic Development Corporation’s Daniel Clark, Trowers & Hamlins’ Sara Bailey and Commercial Property Partners’ Rob Darrington. Each was able to provide key industry insights from the public and private sector. This was a lively debate, represented from different perspectives, bringing in an audience from a variety of sectors and locations across the UK. 

Heading to CITU’s offices in Leeds Dock we discussed how do we provide the right homes in the right places, an important topic across cities all over the UK, but something we in Sheffield are tackling head on such as with our work with Homes England. 

In partnership with the Institute of Directors and London Property Association our cities reception was a great event where we were fortunate to hear from some fantastic speakers and gain valuable insight from Shravan Joshi MBE from the City of London Corporation, Melissa Roman Burch from the New York City Economic Development Corporation and Wei Yang from Digital Task Force for Planning.

Ending the week, we explored investable opportunities within the region and heard from key speakers from Sheffield City Council and current investors. An incredible event seeing some of the greatest names in UK property discussing issues that face the industry every day. We’re already looking forward to next year.