What’s Next? Housing Summit 2020

Following the success of our “What’s Next?” conference last year, we were delighted to bring our partners, subcontractors and contacts together once again, to discuss the future direction of our industry.

The Thakeham family

Over 250 industry professionals gathered at the Hilton London Gatwick Airport. The theme of this year’s conference: Inspiring Sustainable Placemaking. After warming up over coffee and some breakfast, you could sense the anticipation for the presentations by our industry experts.

Our panel of speakers

Five guest speakers joined our CEO, Rob Boughton, on stage, each giving an engaging and thought-provoking presentation about the current situation of the housing industry and where it is heading.

Lucian Cook, Director, Residential Research and Charlie Collins, Head of Planning South East, both with Savills, John Slaughter, Director of External Affairs for the Home Builders Federation and Robert Colvile, Director of the CPS and CAPX Editor-in-Chief. This year we were also joined by Jenny Anderson, CEO of We Activate the Future.

A captivated audience

Our speakers provided stats, graphs and industry predictions that had our audience engaged right from the start.

The political instability of last year, the impact it had on the housing market and what a post Brexit “Boris Bounce” will bring for the industry were hot topics.

Sustainability and environmental issues were discussed by all our speakers. Despite some sobering statistics, the presentations left everyone with real a sense of optimism.

Our panel highlighted how the upcoming years will be a pivotal time for the industry, but presents a real opportunity for us to be at the forefront of implementing changes that will have a positive impact on our businesses and the planet.

The inspiring and powerful content presented, led to an interesting Q&A session and discussions on these matters continued over lunch.

Next steps for Thakeham

Thakeham announced three sustainability pledges at the conference; by 2025 every Thakeham home will be zero carbon in its lifetime operation, carbon neutral in its production and that the Thakeham Group as an organisation will be zero carbon.

Rob Boughton said of the industry-leading announcements ” Long-term Sustainability is a key issue for Thakeham. It’s important to us and our customers. We know many public and private sector organisations are already aiming to be zero carbon by 2050. But we think we can achieve the milestone more quickly than that.

“We want to show people it can be done. Our public declaration is a simple way to make sure our business is accountable to the communities we serve.

“We’re promising to prioritise sustainability and serve our clients and homebuyers even better with conscientious and innovative home development. We’ll continue to go beyond bricks and mortar and engage about the important issues that affect our society the most.”