The Editor speaks
Housing, Public Law and Judicial Review
It will not surprise anybody to hear that this has been a busy period for all those involved in housing. On a personal level, that has included a successful appearance before the Court of Appeal in November 2017 Hertfordshire County Council v Davies, where I was lucky enough to lead the ferociously talented Tara O’Leary, the publication of my book Cornerstone on Social Housing Fraud the following month, and the launch of a blog arising from this enterprise with my brilliant colleague, Richard Hanstock.
Chambers was also lucky enough to secure the appointment of a new Head of Communications, Dr Carolina Gasparoli. This provided me with a good excuse reason to review the formatting of our newsletter and in the midst of the usual plethora of blogs, newsletters and other information identify a clear role and purpose for the Cornerstone Housing Newsletter.
We have decided therefore to both simplify the look of the newsletter and adopt a themed approach. The opening topic is, appropriately, homelessness and Catherine Rowlands, David Lintott and Tara O’Leary have written three excellent articles on different aspects of this topic.
I say appropriately because this is of course the week that the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 comes into force, on 3 April 2018. The Housing Team have been busy in the first three months of 2018 providing training to local authorities – Manchester, Birmingham, London and Margate to name just four venues – and we will as ever be ready to provide quality advice and assistance to our clients as required.
The Second Bryan McGuire QC Memorial Lecture on Homelessness 2018 was held on 22 March and James Murray, the London Deputy Mayor for Housing and Residential Development, was this year’s guest speaker.
Finally, we have started the 2018 Housing Seminar Programme with a wonderfully received event covering data protection (GDPR) and surveillance in social housing. Well done to the speakers, Estelle Dehon, Matt Lewin and John Fitzsimons.
The next event is Defending Disrepair on 25 April 2018 and presented by Michael Paget and Ryan Kohli: Book now!
Well, I think that is more than enough from me… Enjoy the read!
