Events

Around 200 guests gathered at Hotel Voco last week for the inaugural Place North West Property Lunch and were treated to a lively and candid panel session reflecting on the first half of 2025 and looking ahead to the next six months.

Can Cumbria’s property market be as challenging as its landscape? Is there frustration that the county is overlooked by government? Or is the county about to reach a new peak thanks to devolution? The 2025 Cumbria Development Update took a look at the state of play.

Housing 2025, the latest instalment of the annual conference in Manchester, feels as if it has added significance this year given the Labour government’s concerted push to deliver more homes. Place North hosted around 200 delegates for an evening of networking at the close of day one.

Are Cheshire and North Wales starring in a development fairytale to emulate that of Wrexham Football Club? As the script for an elected mayor evolves, how can this region take centre stage in the Devolution Priority Programme? Place North West’s annual exploration of the area put the spotlight on the changing times ahead.

Place North’s invitation-only briefing on the Wednesday morning at UKREiiF explored one of the biggest and most enduring obstacles the property and development industry is seeking to overcome – society’s distrust of the sector.

Around 300 property professionals headed straight from the Royal Armouries to Revolution de Cuba to unwind at the end of the first day of UKREiiF 2025 in Leeds.

Is the shed market staring down the barrel of a supply crisis? How are turbulent Trump tariffs impacting the sector? In a world now underpinned by AI, is this the time for Atom Valley and data centres to shine? All of this and more was on the agenda at Place North West’s 2025 North West Industrial and Logistics conference.

Junction at Manchester Central was the venue for the first PYT shindig of the year, where more than 200 of the industry’s future leaders gathered to hone their networking skills.

With the end of the convention in sight, Muse’s managing director, Phil Mayall, Tom Bloxham of Urban Splash, and igloo regeneration’s senior development manager, Insiyah Khushnood gave their final reflections on the big week.

From data centres in Blackpool to space centres in Newcastle, a panel of Northern leaders set out their investment propositions on the global stage and discussed how the North can work together to make them a reality.

Positive steps taken towards reinvigorating housebuilding by the government nine months into its term are not to be sniffed at – but does the ambition match the reality on the ground? Place North’s MIPIM breakfast conference focused on this topic with a panel of private and public sector experts.

The rental sector is seeing record growth and massive international investment: no surprise then that this Place event attracted a large and vocal audience. Issues discussed included green rooms for a new generation of creatives, opportunities for retrofit, and the ongoing university challenge.

Stronger partnerships, being willing to take more risks, and adopting off-site manufacturing at scale were all posited as ways the North can deliver better schemes at pace at a Place North panel session on the UK Stage at MIPIM.

Eamonn Boylan is hoping to restructure the way the organisation works from within and leave a lasting legacy that will provide a springboard for delivery when he vacates his post for the next permanent chief executive of the government’s housing and regeneration agency.

Delegates of all stripes keen to get their week off to a flyer descended on Huracannes for the third edition of Place’s popular Monday evening gathering.