National

Chairman’s Lunch

This year’s Chairman’s Lunch held 3 December was the usual celebration of FBE’s anniversary (62 years) but it was tinged with sadness as it was the last at the Café Royal, which is due for redevelopment as a hotel in the New Year as part of the Lower Regent Street Redevelopment Scheme. Besides being a celebration the event has many aims; chiefly to raise the profile and awareness of fbe amongst other institutes and organisations, but also to thank people and companies that have helped the organisation in various ways throughout the past year.

FBE’s Chairman, Phil Laycock, hosted the event and gave the Welcome speech; Clare Prior, a partner at the law firm Speechly Bircham LLP, delivered the main speech, and Roger Adcock, Master of the Worshipful Company of Constructors, gave the Vote of Thanks and closed the proceedings.

Our special thanks go to Clare as she had an unusual role in that she was ‘the standby speaker’, for both the House of Lords Luncheon and the Chairman’s Lunch, in case the first choice speaker, Baroness Vadera (and latterly Ian Pearson MP following the cabinet reshuffle) was unable to attend at the last moment, as can so very often happen with Parliamentarians at these events. As it so happened she didn’t have to ‘sing for her supper’ at the House of Lords (see report) and was able to sit back, enjoy the event and listen to Spencer de Grey. The Minister’s diary commitments (probably the State Opening of Parliament) swung Clare into action and her talk at the Chairman’s Lunch centred on her involvement with the London 2012 Olympics and covered the mammoth task of obtaining ownership information, creating links with the Land Registry, the need to have a planning permission for the bid process, winning the bid and the Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) and working to tight timescales for delivering vacant possession of the sites.

In closing Roger Adcock, an FBE Fellow, said "…I enjoyed Clare's words providing us with a little more background to the enormous work done by the whole construction team in delivering 2012." He also pointed out, to much acclaim, that Clare was a little 'treasure' (not that we would dispute the observation but it will teach us to proof read better the published information - an 'r' and dropped in fact Clare is the South East Treasurer for Women in Property).