Housing 21 Conference

Housing 21’s annual conference took place in Birmingham on 9 October 2024. The theme for this year was Shaping the Future of Older People's Housing. 

The Housing 21 conference brings together speakers from across the housing sector, academia and policy makers, to discuss the pressing issues, developments and topics in the world of housing for older people.

Open: Suki Kalirai

In his executive career Suki held senior positions at major consumer goods, hotel, and hospitality companies. He began his non-executive director roles in his mid-30s and has held roles in a broad range of sectors and geographies, including PLCs, charities, trade bodies, and for private equity firms. He was also the Senior Advisor to the Secretary General of the United Nations Earth Summit. His current roles include being the Chair of PA Housing, the Retirement Living Committee at Housing 21, and the London Legacy Development Corporation, the continuing regeneration of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. 

Session one: Housing at the centre of government strategies for older people

Ian Wilson, Professor of Policy Research and Evaluation at Sheffield Hallam University, where he is the Deputy Director of the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research (CRESR). He has 20 years of experience in undertaking applied policy research and evaluation. Ian has been awarded around £20 million of research and evaluation income as a principal or co- investigator by a range of commissioning bodies. He is currently a lead for CRESR’s involvement in a £10 million call off agreement with MHCLG’s Housing and Planning Division. A main focus of Ian’s work is the provision and affordability of housing. 

Jeremy Porteus FRSA, Chief Executive, Housing LIN. Jeremy was formerly National Lead for Housing at the Department of Health responsible for the Extra Care Housing capital fund and the Prevention Technology Grant programme. After leaving the department, he founded the independent Housing LIN (Learning and Improvement Network), bringing together over 20,000 housing, health and social care practitioners in England, Wales and Scotland to identify and showcase innovative housing and technology enabled solutions for an ageing population, such as the HAPPI and TAPPI programmes. Jeremy was a judge on the Government’s Homes for 2030 Board, a member of Innovate UK’s Healthy Ageing Advisory Board and the Dunhill Medical Trust funded Housing with Care Commission.

Mario Ambrosi, Chair of the Housing and Ageing Alliance. The HAA is made up of a broad spectrum of people from local and national organisations working together with a single objective; to bring about improvements to the housing and living conditions of older people. He is also Director of Communications and Marketing at Anchor and has held several senior roles there since joining England’s largest not for profit provider of housing and care for older people in 2004. A former journalist, he is also Co-Chair of the National Care Forum’s marketing and communications group.

Millie Brown, Senior Evidence Manager for Homes at the Centre for Ageing Better. Millie's background is research-based both in her employment and educational experience, which includes her completing an MSc in Social Research Methods at the University of Sussex. During her time at The University of Sussex, Millie’s research was focused on the role of local-based charities in healthy ageing and worked alongside Age UK to publish several reports on this subject area. Building upon her knowledge and passion for healthy ageing, in the last few years Millie has specialised on the importance of good-quality housing with an ageing lens. This includes working in local authorities in homeslessness and developing strategies for the inclusion of age-friendly social housing. She now leads on the research and policy development into addressing existing poor-quality homes at The Centre for Ageing Better. Millie is currently focusing on Ageing Better's Good Home Hub programme, which includes evaluating 8 different home improvement services across England to evidence the quality, impact and costs of local-based home improvement interventions. 

Paul Teverson, Director of Communications for McCarthy Stone, the UK’s leading developer and manager of retirement communities. He is also a Trustee of the McCarthy Stone Foundation and Vice Chair of the Retirement Housing Group. Prior to joining the Company in 2011, Paul worked as an adviser to a senior Labour MP and Government Minister and provided communications support for many of the UK’s largest housebuilders and large-scale national infrastructure projects. 

Richard Webb, Richard is Corporate Director for health and adult services at North Yorkshire Council and over the last 10 years has led a significant expansion of the local extra care housing programme, which now comprises 28 schemes and 1500 apartments for rent or sale, as well as leading major service changes across social care and public health and the Council’s response to COVID-19. Richard started his career in the NHS in Newcastle upon Tyne and has also worked for the NHS in Gateshead and spent 10 years in Stockton on Tees in both local government and the NHS, including joint roles.

Session two: Housing options for a non-homogenous group of older people 

James Lloyd, James joined ARCO in September 2022 as Director of Policy and Communications. He has worked in public policy for two decades, with a particular focus on ageing, social care, housing and education. Prior to ARCO, he worked for a national exam board and a number of public policy think-tanks. 

Joan Rutherford, Joan has had an interest in housing issues since the early 1970s, when she worked on Housing Action Areas and General Improvement Areas for Sheffield City Council.  Joan managed Manchester City Council’s Access Team for seven years (2000 – 2007) during which the Team produced Design for Access 2, which is still Manchester’s manual of inclusive design guidance. Joan is currently Chair of the national network of Older People’s Housing Champions and Treasurer of High Peak Access Group.  Joan has an interest in campaigning for accessible housing, and particularly for wheelchair accessible housing. 

Steve Seckler, Steve owns and operates the specialist retirement housing and development consultancy Secker Taylor Associates, advising growing organisations. They advise on retirement development whether at a tactical level to improve designs and viability or sales rates through to how to structure and deliver development process and strategic business reviews. Steve is LaingBuisson’s retirement expert chairing conferences, author of their market report and consultant

Mark Pearce, Mark has previously managed a home improvement agency in Warwickshire where he developed a very successful Handyperson and effective hospital discharge service and made contributions to the development of local and national government policy in relation to independent living and cost effectiveness of service delivery models which freed up local resources which could be allocated elsewhere.

Paul Tennant, Paul has extensive governance experienced having chaired and been a member of many Boards and organisations. He was formerly President of the Chartered Institute of Housing and received an OBE in 2016 for services to Housing. Paul joined Abbeyfield in January 2022 and is focused on providing clear direction and vision for the Society, improving the performance of Retirement Living,  completing the strategic structural changes planned, and to plan for the long term future of Abbeyfield. 

John Palmer, John leads Independent Age's policy research, campaigning, profile-raising, fundraising and marketing activities. John has led the development of IA’s renewed strategy, which focuses our work on supporting older people in financial hardship through our policy change campaigning, expert information and advice and funding local organisations. John has held several senior director-level communications, marketing, and fundraising roles at significant charities, including Oxfam, The Scout Association, the National Centre for Social Research, the MS Society,  and Hospices and within the Community Foundation movement.

Session three: How should the government tackle these challenges? 

Alistair Smyth, Alistair has worked in the social housing sector for over fifteen years in a wide range of roles and organisations including most recently at Guinness as Director of External Affairs and Social Investment, and a previous spell at the NHF as Head of Policy, during which time he led the NHF’s work on supported housing. Prior to that, he worked as a consultant on a range of neighbourhood and community empowerment projects. He also spent three years working in a customer-facing role as a Neighbourhood Manager and as Assistant Head of Neighbourhoods for Peabody. He is a member of the Chartered Institute of Housing’s Policy Advisory Committee.

Megan Hinch, Megan is a policy and practice officer at the Chartered Institute of Housing, the professional body for the housing sector. Megan leads CIH’s work on supply and finance policy, largely focusing on development and building homes to meet housing needs in the current financial climate. Prior to joining CIH, Megan worked in asset management, leading on a range of responsive repairs and housing management areas.

Tony Tench, Tony joined Housing 21 in 2014. He has over 25 years of experience in housing, development, asset management and social care. As Deputy Chief Executive for Housing 21, he is responsible for leading on property development, construction, asset management, building safety and delivering growth through acquisitions. Tony is also responsible for IT and Systems, People and Culture, and Marketing Communications. Tony’s previous experience includes Executive roles at Hanover Housing Association (including Director of Extra Care, Director of Strategic Improvement and Director of Retirement Housing and Property Services), and prior to that leading on Extra Care housing development for Anchor Trust. His earlier career was in Financial Services. Tony is a Business and Marketing Graduate. He is a Board Member of Community Housing (a stock transfer housing provider in the Wyre Forest) where he also Chairs the Operations Committee. Tony is passionate about resident engagement and providing homes and services that residents really value.

Dawn Carr, Dawn is the Director of Legacy West Midlands, and a co-founder of the Black Heritage Walks Network CIC. She has a strong background in delivering heritage projects and super-diversity initiatives, focusing on Black and minority ethnic groups at both local, national level and international level. 

Tony Watts, OBE, Tony is a journalist, writer and campaigner who has been working the later life zone for over 35 years, including editing the UK’s first national newspaper for older people. He recently relaunched the Age Action Alliance, leading a collaborative, knowledge-sharing network of over 200 organisations and older people’s groups. And he edits Later Life Agenda, a daily news e-bulletin. He has also carved out a niche in property, having written extensively for Property Week as well as freelancing for many of the national broadsheets. He brings these two strands together for his work around later life housing, and sits on a number of national working groups as well as acting as an Older People’s Housing Champion. In 2014 he received an OBE for his services to older people.

Stephen Hughes, Stephen has spent all his career in public service.  He served on the Board of Housing 21 for nine year. Stephen’s background was local government.  After running finances at London Boroughs of Islington and Brent, he was strategic director of resources at Birmingham City Council before becoming Chief Executive at Birmingham for 9 years until 2014.  Since then he has had a range of different roles, such as providing financial and management advice to a number of Councils, Oxford University and the Welsh Government, interim Chief Executive of Bristol City Council.  He has recently finished as Finance Commissioner at Liverpool City Council, but still serves on its Improvement Board and on the Improvement Board of West of England Combined Authority.  Stephen is also a Non-Executive Director at HS2 Ltd, having Chaired its Audit Committee and now its Comercial and Investment Committee.

Close: Bruce Moore, Chief Executive Housing 21 

Bruce joined Housing 21 as Chief Executive in 2013. Before that, Bruce was Chief Executive for Hanover Housing Group and had previously been Chief Executive of Wolverhampton Homes and Deputy Chief Executive of Anchor Trust. Bruce’s early career was as an in-house lawyer and he is a qualified solicitor, but he has spent more than 20 years leading change and seeking to improve the provision of housing and care for older people. Bruce has served and continues to serve as a board member for a number of housing organisations, charities and a local authority owned care company.

Charlotte Cook, Charlotte is a Partner in the Social Housing arm of Winckworth Sherwood’s Real Estate team. She has extensive experience working with Registered Providers, NHS bodies, local authorities, and with care and support organisations. She has particular expertise in development work (including planning gain and management areas, as well as construction and ancillary matters, both on greenfield and regeneration sites) as well as working with sheltered, supported housing and extra care providers.