Key players in Oxfordshire’s property and business world celebrated the launch of the fourth OxPropFest Awards.

Around 70 guest attended our launch webinar on Thursday (February 18) to hear from a line up of some of the leading names in the county’s real estate and development industries.

They included OxLEP chief executive, Nigel Tipple, Harwell Campus director, Angus Horner, Edgars’ director Jayne Norris, Bicester Heritage’s senior property development manager, Jonty Ashworth and VSL director, Richard Venables.

Mr Tipple told guests: “If you go back to 2018, when we first launched the awards, we had spent probably the previous 12 months, starting to recognise that Oxfordshire the place, the market, the businesses, the development community, had matured to such an extent that there was a real value in showcasing, not just the quality of development but the diversity of it. And the opportunity to really bring that professional community together in a way that we, perhaps, hadn’t genuinely celebrated previously.

“There’s definitely an opportunity there to highlight the strength of the market, the strength of the opportunity and the breadth of it.”

Winner of last year’s Leader of the Year award, Angus Horner, described the benefits the awards have brought to the Harwell Campus.

He said: “It’s great for us because it expands our network and makes more noise about the success of the county and, specifically in our case at Harwell, what people can get involved in.”

The 10 award categories are:

  • Best Property Agent/Advisor – sponsored by Freeths
  • Best Law Firm – sponsored by Milton Park
  • Best Planning Consultancy – sponsored by Harwell
  • Best Residential Development – sponsored by Bidwells
  • Best Commercial Development (industrial/science/office sectors) – sponsored by Penningtons Manches Cooper
  • Best Interior (Cool & Funky Space) – sponsored by Savills
  • Project of the Year Award – sponsored by Ridge
  • Most Innovative and Sustainable Initiative of the Year – sponsored by Bicester Motion
  • Young Property Person of the Year – sponsored by Stantec
  • Property Leader of the Year – sponsored by Morgan Sindall

Entries, which can for the first time include video submissions, are open until 6pm on Friday, April 16.

The judges’ panel will now meet on Friday May 21 and we will publish the shortlist in Thames Tap on May 24. Winners will be announced at an awards dinner on Thursday, September 9 at Bicester Motion.

The awards dinner will be the finale to UKPropFest a day which includes an exhibition, a choice of walks and a series of talks.

For more about the day, click here.

The awards pack is available here.

Image (l-r) shows UK Property Forums managing director Matthew Battle, Nigel Tipple and Angus Horner.

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