march 2010

Ken Ross OBE, past Chairman of the SPF, and Chairman and Chief Executive of Elphinstone Holdings Ltd facilitated the annual conference of the Scottish Property Federation (SPF) held at Our Dynamic Earth, Edinburgh on 2nd March. The event was hosted by Phil Miller, Chairman of the SPF and Chief Executive of Miller Developments, and First Minister Alex Salmond made the keynote speech. The theme of the conference was 'Respite or Recovery: Politics and the Scottish Property Industry in 2010'.

The conference comes at a time when the Scottish property investment market has been showing signs of recovery, following a downturn that can be traced back to late 2007. It saw industry and business leaders debate whether these signs herald a sustained economic recovery or whether there is likely to be a further slump.

Speakers included the First Minister; Malcolm Naish, Vice Chairman of the SPF and Head of Global Investments, Scottish Widows Investment Partnership; Dan Macdonald, Chair of the Planning Committee of the SPF and Chief Executive of Macdonald Estates plc; Liz Peace CBE, Chief Executive of the British Property Federation and Lai Wah Co, Head of Economic Analysis with the CBI.

An MSP Question Time session, chaired by BBC journalist Brian Taylor,  also took place. Sitting on the panel was David Whitton MSP (Labour), Derek Brownlee MSP (Conservative), Jeremy Purvis MSP (Liberal Democrat) and Alex Neil MSP (SNP).

Commenting on the First Minister's agreement to speak at the conference, the SPF's Chairman Phil Miller said:

"This is a welcome sign of the importance attached to the commercial property industry by the Scottish Government. Our industry has a key role to play in driving economic growth and raising the quality of commercial property in Scotland. We look forward to hearing the First Minister's views on the state of the Scottish economy, property industry and the role of the political establishment in engineering economic recovery."

Further details can be obtained from the SPF Website >>