PRS Conference: Bringing together ideas across Europe

 

Conference & Workshop
11-12 July 2011

The conference held on the 11 July was the third and final event of our Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) project looking at the UK private rented sector from an international perspective.  It brought together expert speakers from the American, Australian/New Zealand and UK contexts to develop the issues raised in the two previous seminarsand to start to define an agenda and  set of recommendations to support the development of  a truly effective private rented sector. Participants included many of those who had taken part in the earlier events, together with researchers, government officials,  financial specialists, developers, landlords and other stakeholders in the private rented sector.

Speakers included: 

• Kath Scanlon
  LSE London
• Professor Terry Burke
  Swinburne University of Technology
• Alex Schwartz
  The New School
• Tony Crook
  University of Sheffield
• Julie Rugg 
  University of York
• Christine Whitehead
  LSE
  
  

  Kath Scanlon presentation: Emerging themes: learning from international experience

  Terry Burke presentation: Australian/New Zealand Experience: A tenure under severe stress

  Alex Schwartz presentation: The American Experience: building and financing rental housing

  Link to Workshop 1& 2

 

 

 

 

 

 The small workshop held the following morning with the foreign specialists and a small number of the group, mainly the  academics, discussed various understandings of issues and ways forward in the context of LSE London's forthcoming publication from the project. Some of the issues discussed revolved around the possibel reaasons behind UK's private rented sector revival- if indeed there was one; fiscal framework for landlords; individual and institutional incentives to build for rent; and the links between the social and private sectors. Conclusions from this meeting will be made available in our forthcoming 'Towards a Sustainable private rented sector in the UK' book.