Liz Oliver
Safer Homes Director, The Hyde Group

Liz Oliver had led in compliance and safer homes roles within the housing sector for over ten years, working for organisations including Homes for Haringey and Optivo.

Liz feels passionately about keeping both residents and buildings safe. She has headed up Hyde’s Safer Homes team for around 18 months, and under her leadership, Hyde has carried out major building safety work on 10 residential buildings and thousands of other smaller projects. She recently led on the successful recladding project affecting 433 homes in five tower blocks at Gosport. The project has not only won national awards, but Liz’s work at Gosport led to her becoming a ‘Building Safety Ambassador’ for Inside Housing.

Thanks to Liz’s approach, always focusing on engaging with residents, and by being honest, open and supportive, Hyde has demonstrated to residents, stakeholders and government that it is a sector leader in building safety.

Justin Appleyard
Tenant and Founder, TRIO

My name is Justin Appleyard and I live in a high rise. I started a tenant-led fire safety initiative called TRIO (The Responsibility Is Ours), which promotes a culture of responsibility by empowering tenants to take responsibility for the safety of themselves and their neighbours, whilst working with their landlord, emergency services and other outside agencies.

Pete Apps
Deputy Editor, Inside Housing

Peter Apps is an award-winning journalist and Deputy Editor at leading social housing publication Inside Housing. He broke a story on the dangers of combustible cladding thirty-four days before the Grenfell Fire. He has not stopped reporting on this national tragedy since, and his coverage of the public inquiry has received widespread acclaim. He is the author of the book Show Me the Bodies and lives in London.

Peter Baker
Chief Inspector of Buildings, HSE

Peter joined HSE as a Factory Inspector in 1985 and has held a number of senior operational posts dealing with a wide range of industry sectors, including construction. For 6 years Peter led HSE’s regulation of the major hazard chemical and downstream oil industries with partner environment agencies and was appointed Chief Inspector of Construction in April 2015.

From 2017 Peter led HSE’s contribution to the Government’s Building Safety Programme following the Grenfell Tower tragedy. He is now at the forefront of the programme to establish the new Building Safety Regulator in HSE. Peter is also responsible for HSE’s regulation of workplace health and safety in the construction industry.

Jacqui Bateson
Managing Director, HACT

Jacqui joined HACT in 2020. As Managing Director at HACT, she provides day-to-day leadership and management and is responsible for driving HACT to achieve sales, profitability, cash flow, business goals and objectives. Responsible for product development, she works with clients both within and beyond the housing sector. Before joining HACT, she completed her Master’s in Business Administration specialising in corporate finance, strategic marketing and business innovation and change. She has worked in the financial services sector in a wide range of roles and within the housing sector as a non-executive director for over 20 years.

Charis Beverton
Partner, Winckworth Sherwood

Charis has over 13 years’ experience of construction claims, developing a leading practice in fire and building safety in recent years. She is regularly called on to comment on the latest developments in this area, particularly for Building Magazine, Inside Housing and Property Week. She has also contributed to an episode of the BBC Grenfell Podcast.

Charis represents clients at adjudication, arbitration and in litigation in the County Court and High Court (mostly in the Business and Property Division) prosecuting or defending claims relating to time, defects and/or money.

She acts principally for housing associations, private developers and contractors

Colin Blatchford-Brown
Operational Policy Lead for Gateways & Building Control HSE Building Safety Programme, HSE

Colin has worked in the building control profession for over 30 years in both the public and private sectors, working on a variety of projects, including high rise residential and commercial developments as well as involvement with Hinkley Point C nuclear power station. Colin has also provided technical training for the RIBA and RICS, is an RICS APC Chairman and Assessor as well as being an RICS Registered Expert Witness. Colin’s role within the Building Safety Programme is to lead the operational policy development for the building control function for higher risk buildings.

Emma Burton
Assistant Director of Building Safety, Peabody

Emma has been working in social housing for the last 14 years, having originally trained in architecture. She has managed asset management functions and then moved onto compliance, where she has led teams for a variety of housing organisations in the North West and more recently for Peabody in London. Emma is now leading the Building Safety Team at Peabody. Through work with the Early Adopters, she is helping to shape how one of the largest housing associations in the UK is tackling the culture and process changes that are needed to meet the challenges of the new building safety legislation.

Matt Canham
Fire Engineer, NFCC

Matt joined Suffolk Fire & Rescue Service in 2001 as an operational firefighter, joining Protection (Fire Safety) in 2011. He became Technical / Legal Fire Safety and Fire Investigation Lead in 2017 and was seconded to the National Fire Chiefs Council Protection Policy and Reform Unit Building Safety Programme Team in March 2020, to work with government and the sector in shaping the new regulatory regime. Matt is an experienced Protection officer with knowledge in enforcing the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, carrying out Building Regulations consultations and reviewing and commenting on fire engineering reports and strategies.

Marie Chadwick
Policy Leader, National Housing Federation

Marie leads the National Housing Federation’s policy work on supply – from the Affordable Homes Programme right through to Voluntary Right to Buy and everything in between. Marie’s background is in policy and public affairs, both in the housing and charity sectors.

Sarah Finnegan
Head of Policy, National Housing Federation

Sarah has been at the NHF since 2017 as part of the member relations team, before becoming Head of Policy last year. She previously held different policy and strategy roles in local government in London.

Anna Fricker
Lead Standards Development Manager, BSI

Anna is a Lead Standards Development Manager at BSI and the Committee Manager for CPB/1, the technical committee responsible for the development of standards for competence in the built environment, including the conversion of BSI Flex 8670 to BS 8670. Prior to joining BSI, Anna worked in academic research and holds a doctorate in materials science from Imperial College London.

Richard Harral
Technical Director, Chair, CABE, CPB/1

Richard Harral is the Technical Director for CABE. He has previously worked as an architect in both public and private sector practice, and as a policy official in the Building Regulations Division of MHCLG between 2007 and 2014 where he oversaw introduction of policies on accessible housing, security standards, broadband and the national space standard for new homes. He was subsequently Head of Technical Policy in the period 2014-2017. He currently sits on the CIC Competence Steering Group, and chairs a number of competence working groups including on Designer and Architect Competence. He was Technical author for Flex 8670, the recently published British Standard on Competence for building safety in Built environment industries.

Nichola Harrison
Assistant Director - Health, Safety and Facilities, Paradigm

Nichola is passionate about safety, health and wellbeing. Her background is diverse across a variety of organisations such as Battersea Dog’s and Cat’s Home, Christie’s Auction House, Capita H&S Consultancy and several housing associations. Nichola also has extensive military experience as an Army officer in the Royal Military Police. The combination of civilian and military experience has led Nichola to develop a broad skill set, she is able to provide strong leadership and H&S technical skills. Nichola has had great success leading organisations in creating healthier and safer working environments and improving their overall safety culture. Nichola is currently at Head of Health and Safety at Paradigm Housing Group and a Non-Executive Director for Amber Housing.

Kate Henderson
Chief Executive, National Housing Federation

Kate Henderson is Chief Executive of the National Housing Federation (NHF), the voice of housing associations in England. Kate is passionate about tackling the housing crisis, inequality and climate change. She is a member of several government panels including the Rough Sleeping Advisory Panel and the Social Housing White Paper Expert Challenge Panel. Kate become a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in 2021. Prior to joining the NHF in 2018, Kate was Chief Executive of the Town and Country Planning Association.

Dan Hollas
Building Safety Director, Clarion Housing Group

Dan has over 20 years of senior management experience in the social housing sector, with extensive building safety, technical and strategic leadership expertise in asset management. Includes experience in a range of organisations including national HAs and local government, with up to circa 120k+ properties. Dan has led the Building Safety directorate at Clarion for the last 5 years developing into one of the leading teams in the sector.

Gill Kiy
Regulatory Interventions Lead, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities

Gill Kiy is the Regulatory Interventions Lead in the Building Safety Programme at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Gill has worked in the Building Safety Programme since 2017 taking forward the Government’s response to Dame Judith Hackitt’s Independent Review and leading on the development of policy and legislation in the Building Safety Act. She and her team are now focusing on the secondary legislation to support implementation of the Act.

Gill was previously in the Department for Business working on competition and consumer matters including providing sponsorship for the Competition and Markets Authority.

Before joining Department for Business the Gill has worked in a number of regulators including the Food Standards Agency and the Health and Safety Executive.

Dorian Lawrence
Managing Director, FR Consultants

Dorian Lawrence MCIOB C.Build E MCABE founded FR Consultants in 2018, with over 30 years of experience in the Specialist area of Façade and Fire compliance. Following the Grenfell tragedy, he identified a need for guidance, accountability, and new services in the relatively new and constantly evolving façade fire safety landscape. Dorian’s vision to make Britain’s buildings safe, mortgageable, saleable and insurable is realised in FRC’s full suite of end to end services and his mission to educate all those responsible for building safety.

Kelly Lee
Building Safety Leader, Orbit

I have worked in the Safety Sector for over 9 years for Orbit. And my current role is Building Safety Leader, working with a great team of people ensuring that Orbit is ready and able to implement the changes coming from the Building Safety Act.

Previously I worked within various other departments within the social housing sector. I started my career with a Local Authority Housing department and since then have worked in tenancy management, repairs and maintenance, voids and lettings and estate regeneration.

Ensuring our customers have safe homes is really important to me and with my current role im excited to be part of the built environment changes that will really make a difference now and in the future.

Siobhan McCoy
Head of Consultancy, Pennington Choices

Andy McGrory
Policy Lead, HSE

I have worked for HSE for 24 years as a field inspector working in a number of sectors including construction, as a policy adviser leading a number of projects, and in various corporate roles. For the last two years I have been the policy lead for resident engagement in the new Building Safety Programme, with specific responsibility for the residents’ panel.

Victoria Moffett
Head of Building and Fire Safety Programmes, National Housing Federation

Victoria leads the National Housing Federation’s building safety work, which focusses on supporting housing associations in their work to remediate buildings, shaping and preparing for the new regulatory system and developing long-term cultural change around safety. Victoria comes from a communications, policy and public affairs background, with experience in both housing and the charity sectors.

Andrew Moore
HSE

Teresa Ocansey
Non Executive Director, Building a Safer Future Charter

Teresa has 10 years experience in local government. Working for the LGA: a national membership body for local authorities who work on behalf of member councils to support, promote and improve local government.

Teresa has a BA (Hons) degree in Media studies and English literature from De Montfort university.

Teresa’s most recent role consisted of supporting projects within the financial sector.

A key aspect of all the roles undertaken is having exceptional communication skills which she has been able to develop by working with many colleagues across various sectors.

Brent O’Halloran
Building Safety Advisor, Clarion Housing Group

Brent trained and worked in Building Services before moving into the Social Housing property services sector. Over the years Brent has adopted a systems-thinking approach to problem solving with a deep understanding of building pathology and contract management. Much of his formative experience has been gained through managing modernisation programmes and developing asset management strategies. In the last five years Brent has focussed on improving building safety regimes in higher risk buildings.

Jack Ostrofsky
Head of Quality and Design, Southern Housing Group, Chair, BIM for Housing Associations

Jack has a broad range of experience across the entire property lifecycle. He has been at the forefront of strategic enterprise-wide responses to the Hackitt Review for several large housing associations. As founder and chair of BIM for Housing Associations, Jack is leading a collaborative effort bringing together leading housing associations and consultants to discuss and develop best practice for digitising asset information and to put forward the business case for BIM.

Alex Parker
National Account Manager, Aico

Alex joined Aico in 2019 as a Regional Specification Manager for the East Midlands region. Building on his experience within electrical manufacturing and distribution, Alex works closely with housing providers to meet higher standards within home life safety. Alex also works with electrical installers to ensure installations of Aico products are carried out in accordance with relevant British Standards, as well as supporting electrical distributors within his region. In line with Aico’s focus on education, Alex spends significant time delivering training to all parts of the supply chain, focusing on topics such as Fire and Carbon Monoxide protection, IoT solutions and Aico’s new Environmental Sensors.

Emma Richman
Director of Operations, Peaks & Plains Housing Trust

Emma is an award winning housing professional with a career in housing that spans over 27 years, she is currently the Director of Operations at Peaks and Plains Housing Trust and is also an Independent Non Exec at First Choice Homes Oldham. Emma is a qualified Architect and Building Surveyor and is currently a Trustee of the Pankhurst Centre in Manchester.

Emma is a previous Chair of the North West Branch of Women in Property and has been on their committee for the last 10 years. She also won Woman of the Year at the 2018 Woman in Housing Awards.

Lee Rowley MP
Minister of State for Housing, Planning and Building Safety, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities

Lee Rowley was appointed Minster of State (Minister for Housing) in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on 13 November 2023. He was previously Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities between 7 September 2022 and 13 November 2023. He was also Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury between 17 September 2021 and 6 July 2022. He was elected the Conservative MP for North East Derbyshire on 8 June 2017.

Anna Sargeant
Executive Director Asset Investment, Tower Hamlets Community Housing

Anna described her role as a housing officer as ‘the best job in the world’, as she supported different people every day. She believes that good quality housing is a human right and uses her personal experience of bad landlords and poor services to deliver meaningful change to housing organisations. Anna is leading THCH’s building safety and asset programmes to ensure our homes are safe, sustainable, and fit for the future.

Aman Sharma
Managing Director, Deputy Chair, Totus Digital, BRAC

Aman is Deputy Chair of the Building Regulations Advisory Committee (BRAC), Chair of the BRAC Fire Safety (Part B) Technical Review Working Group and Deputy Chair of the BRAC Golden Thread Working Group. He is also Chair of BSI committee FSB 1/1/1, leading on the delivery of BS 8644-1.

A former fire and rescue service officer and fire engineer, Aman is now Managing Director of Totus Digital; a strategic management consultancy specialising in building safety, sustainability and digital reform programmes.

Aman is a champion for integrating digital solutions to enhance building safety and sustainability standards. Including developing industry’s knowledge and understanding of Building Information Modelling through the adoption of national and international standards.

Saz Siddique
Consultant

Saz is a qualified housing professional with over 35 years’ experience. Since 2009 she has been working as a consultant with various housing organisations involved in or leading on the delivery of business-critical projects.

Since June 2017, she has been working in Fire Safety preparing organisations for the implementation of Building Safety Act and Fire legislation.

Saz has a very ‘hands-on’, ‘practical’ and 'collaborative' approach with the ability to translate complex legislation into workable future proofed operational processes and systems.

Sarah Stevenson-Jones
Director of Health and Building Safety, Stonewater

Sarah Stevenson-Jones is Stonewater’s new Director of Building Safety & Compliance and will be supporting the business to ensure the safety of residents, colleagues, contractors and suppliers.

She is a chartered surveyor with experience of working in both private and public organisations. For the past 20 years, Sarah has specialised in property compliance and health & safety in the social housing sector, holding senior management roles in both local government departments and housing associations.

Sarah is the Vice National Chair for the National Social Housing Fire Strategy Group and has, over the last five years, contributed to the development of guidance supporting the implementation of the Fire Safety and Building Safety Acts.

Laura Smith
Strategic Fire Safety Manager, Gentoo Group

Laura holds the position of Strategic Fire Safety Manager for Gentoo Group. A Housing Association based in Sunderland. Gentoo Group have 30,000 homes in their current portfolio. Laura’s role is integral to the strategic management of their high, medium and low rise blocks of flats. Since joining Gentoo in 2019 Laura has implemented the fire safety risk management system for the Group and is now ensuring that Gentoo are prepared for the coming changes due to the Building Safety Act.

Laura has had a varied carrier working within the NHS managing fire safety for three hospital sites and previously as a Senior Fire Safety Inspector in Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service.

Laura is a member of the Institute of Fire Engineers working closely with their Women’s Networking Group, holding the position of Secretary since October 2021. Laura has a MSc in Fire and Major Incident Response from Teesside University and has worked within the Fire Industry for 13 years.

Tom Vaughan
Board Member, LiveWest

Tom is chair of the customer services committee at Livewest. An experienced non exec, he has been on the board there since 2016. He has also been on the boards of Thrive Homes, Flocert , a Fairtrade subsidiary and RSPCA Assured.

Prior to this he had a career in marketing in a range of different industries, culminating in a 5 year stint as marketing and strategy director at Affinity Sutton.

He lives just outside Bristol.

Neil Yeomans
Head of Property Safety, Orbit

Neil is the Head of Customer Safety for Orbit Housing. He joined Orbit in after they became the first housing association ever to be downgraded by the regulator for fire safety reasons. Neil has helped take Orbit from this low point through to becoming the first National housing association to become PAS 7 accredited and the first ever to win a RoSPA Gold award for customer safety. Neil comes from a regulatory background himself, as he used to work in an Environmental Health department, specialising in Housing Standards. He made the leap into housing 7 years ago and is passionate about helping improve customer safety standards across the sector.