View from the riverbank: Join us online

In a parallel world our OxPropFest 2020 event was due to happen this Thursday, April 2 at Keble College, Oxford.

A combined total of more than 450 delegates were due to attend the Walk-Talks-Awards Music format for the third year of celebrating the Oxfordshire property market.

We had received 40 awards submissions and had nine prizes to hand out at a lavish black tie event on Thursday evening.

All this has now been now pushed back to September 9.

But, returning to Planet Earth, we are faced with many life challenges which put these ‘celebrations’ into context and make us all realise there are more important issues at hand.

Many of our readers are working hard to keep the Thames Valley property story alive and we are keen to make sure that, despite the challenges which lie ahead of us, we can capture the changing moods of the marketplace.

So, on Thursday, rather than staging the OxPropFest event, we will be working with one of its key contributors, Bidwells, recording a podcast to update the property market on the Oxford-Cambridge Arc. The move to online mirrors the way many of our friends and partners are using technology to keep in touch and to keep the wheels of business turning.

This will be the third in the series in which we have already looked at the residential market in Reading and both the commercial and residential markets of Newbury. It is intended to bring our readers up to date with what is an exciting, new corridor of growth.

As our ability to work normally becomes ever more restricted, we have been asking people out in the market how life has changed for them.

Last week we asked our partners. This week we asked planning consultants about how the system has had to adapt to continue, about their dealings with councils and what is happening to keep the appeals process functioning. Why not use this period to learn how some key professionals are managing in this extraordinarily difficult period?

Another shining example of adapting to a changing world is Bulb Interiors, which is ahead of the market in the creation of laboratory space, especially in Oxfordshire.

Two scientists, Dr Nima Razaie and Dr Manisha Kulkarni, have been recruited and enable Bulb to ‘bridge the gap between science and construction’. No doubt, for Bulb, business is blooming.

Please note that we shall be issuing the next edition of Eastern Echo, covering the Cambridge and the east of England property market, on April 1. If you would like to join the mailing list, drop us a line at info@ukpropertyforums.com