Welcome message from new PLA Chair, Rebecca Campbell

I hope this message finds you well during this busy festive party season and you are looking forward to enjoying a well-deserved break over the holiday period to spend time with family and friends.

As your newly elected Chair, I wanted to introduce myself and your new Executive Committee for 2024/25, as well as share some updates on the PLA’s plans for 2025 as we look ahead to our 30th Anniversary Year.

Firstly, a thank you to our outgoing Chair, Mark Reading. Mark has dedicated the past decade to PLA work and has been instrumental in raising the Association’s profile, making us more externally facing and demonstrating that the PLA can be an influential voice within the real estate industry.

I am delighted that Mark has agreed to continue supporting the Association in the new role of Immediate Past Chair, where he will act as an advisor to the Executive Committee for the next year. So we will not be letting Mark put his feet up just yet!

YOUR EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

At our AGM on 20 November, the new Executive Committee was elected and we took the opportunity to gather for a photo ahead of the Annual Dinner which this year was held in the new venue of Merchant Taylors’ Hall in the City of London.

(Rachael Studman, Lindsey Whittle, Paul Tonkin, Frances Richardson, Chhavie Kapoor, Anna Mullins, Rebecca Campbell, Kate Andrews)

In my speech to guests at the Annual Dinner I shared that, whilst I am the 30th Chair of the Association, I am proud to be the first to hail from Blackpool, Lancashire. I now live in London with my husband and three year-old son. I am a Partner at BCLP, having joined (what was then) BLP as a newly qualified lawyer in 2011. I have been actively involved in PLA committees since 2014, first as a member and then Chair of the Education and Training Committee and then as Honorary Secretary and Vice-Chair.

My Vice-Chair is Kate Andrews, Partner at Hamlins. Kate has spent the past 15 years as a member of the Education and Training Committee and she will continue to Chair the ETC this year. Kate shares my desire to make our 30th Anniversary Conference in Oxford the biggest and best yet!

Kate and I will be supported by a brilliant Executive team who have all also served on PLA committees for a number of years:

• Anna Mullins, Honorary Treasurer; 
• Lindsey Whittle, Honorary Secretary; 
• Paul Tonkin, Chair the Law Reform Committee (LRC); 
• Rachael Studman, Chair of the Junior PLA Committee (JPLA); 
• Frances Richardson, Chair of the Wellbeing Committee; 
• Chhavie Kapoor, Chair of the EDI Committee; 
• Tim Reid, Chair of the Website and Marketing Committee (WMC); and 
• Paul Barker, Chair of the Regions

Tim Reid and Paul Barker missed the photo opportunity but you can see their lovely faces by viewing our About page!

The Executive Committee are supported by our six national sub-committees and our six active and growing regional sub-committees. In total, there are over 50 volunteer members working together behind the scenes to ensure our Association continues to thrive and deliver for our members, all of whom have busy day jobs! I look forward to working closely with them all over the next 12 months.

The PLA was founded in 1995 by a group of seven founding members who sought to build a community of property litigators. The Association now has over 1700 members nationally across the UK and Ireland. Over the past year, we have seen record attendances at each of our flagship events. This shows that despite sometimes being the fiercest of adversaries, property litigators quite enjoy spending time together!

The PLA Vivien King Bursary

At our recent EDI panel event in October, an area of interest that emerged from the discussion and member feedback was social mobility and how we can better attract and retain talented lawyers from all backgrounds into the profession. I believe the PLA has an opportunity to use our platform and reach to make a real impact on encouraging and supporting talented lawyers from all backgrounds to consider and aspire to a career in property litigation.

With that goal in mind, the PLA will be launching a bursary scheme in 2025 which will be open to current and prospective PLA members to help fund attendance at PLA events and other real estate industry events, as well as fund initiatives that will help widen access to our industry.

The bursary will be named after our honorary member Vivien King, who sadly passed away in August this year. You can read Mark’s tribute to Vivien and her contribution to the PLA here. Vivien was a trailblazer in our industry. She was one of the first women property litigation partners in the City of London and a champion and mentor of junior lawyers. We are grateful to Vivien’s husband Wynne for allowing us to launch the bursary in Vivien’s honour.

Further details on how to access the bursary will be shared in the New Year.

The Year Ahead

As we look ahead to 2025, the Association will be busier than ever. We have major law on the horizon with the Renters’ Rights Bill moving quickly through Parliament. Our ETC and LRC committees will be helping members keep on top of the changes and we welcome member feedback on how any new legislation is working in practice.

The 1954 Act consultation published last month has posed existential questions as to whether business tenants still need security of tenure.  The LRC will be preparing a response to the consultation on behalf of the Association and will be ensuring members views and experiences with the Act are reflected in that response.

We will also continue to develop the PLA’s relationship with other key industry bodies in the property industry, including the BPF, the British Council for Offices and RICS, to help understand their approach to law reform; collaborate on wellbeing and EDI initiatives and share learning in relation to such issues.

We want our 30th Anniversary Year to be a year of celebration of the PLA’s achievements but I firmly believe it is also an important time for us to plan ahead for our next decade. To do this, we need the next generation of members to get involved.

If you would like to join any of our committees or have any ideas or suggestions as to how we can better support the wider membership, please do get in touch. You can email: admin@pla.org.uk or contact me or any of the Executive Committee directly. Contact details are on our About page.

Finally, on behalf of the Executive Committee, thank you for your support for the Association over 2024 and I wish you all a restful break over the festive period and a very happy and healthy New Year. 

Rebecca Campbell
PLA Chair
December 2024