The affordability of housing, to buy or to rent, is a major constraint on the ability of young people to live in the places and the homes they want and need to. This has wide-reaching consequences for the way in which they are living their lives. Our youthful panel will discuss how they see these challenges from a personal and professional standpoint, how the situation might evolve and what we can do as an industry to improve access to housing for younger people.
Melissa York – Panellist / chair
Melissa York is the assistant property editor at The Times and The Sunday Times and works on both titles’ award-winning property sections, Bricks & Mortar and Home. She has picked up a few awards herself, including Property Journalist of the Year. She writes news, investigations and features about the entire housing market, from affordable rentals to luxury new-builds, but has a particular specialism in social and affordable housing schemes, local funding for housing, planning and private rented sector policy.
Toby Parsloe – Panellist
Toby Parsloe is Senior Market Analyst in the Data Services Team at Hometrack, a property data and risk software company part of the wider Zoopla property ecosystem. His role focuses on transforming market-leading data into insights into the housing market to assist housebuilders, housing associations, and investors in their property decisions.
Kitty Eyre – Panellist
Kitty has 8 years’ experience in the real estate industry, working with local authorities and commercial development partners. She has worked for Ealing Council and Tower Hamlets Council in planning and regeneration roles. Kitty is now a Development Manager at Urban&Civic focused on large scale development sites outside of London. In this role she works closely with Local Authority partners, housing associations and listed house builders. In her spare time, she also sits on the Poplar HARCA Finance and Investment Committee, as well as being a member of the CULS Resi Forum.
Millie Dodd – Panellist
Through Just Build Homes, Millie advocates the importance of younger people getting involved in planning, ensuring that those affected by the housing crisis are heard in the planning debate. Just Build Homes was established by Shared Voice to engage supportive voices and generate an evidence base of supportive responses on planning portals, helping to get thousands of new homes approved. She is a regular speaker at events, conferences and planning committees, providing insights of her own experiences of the housing crisis and representing the voices of the 6,000 people Just Build Homes has engaged to support a planning application in their local area. Millie graduated from the University of Southampton with a degree in Politics and International Relations, and has a background in amplifying the voices of hard-to-reach groups to decision makers, ensuring that their voices are heard.
Jess Lewis – Panellist
Jess Lewis is Head of Growth at residential fintech lender Gen H, leading its marketing and sales analytics functions. Gen H was founded to make homeownership accessible to everyone, and is known for its market-first affordability solution, the original income booster; for its fresh approach to criteria; and its embrace of complex customer circumstances, whether that’s an affordability constraint, non-standard income, or many other challenges keeping people off the ladder today. Previously, Jess was Commercial and Operations Director at start-up mortgage brokerage and comparison tech platform Koodoo, where she was commercial and operations director covering partnerships, mortgage advice and marketing. Before this, she spent eight years in derivatives trading at Goldman Sachs.
Breakfast and registration are from 8am, followed by the panel discussion at 8.30am.
