‘Housing developers build units, co-operatives build homes and communities’
UKREiiF 2025 Photo, from left: Blase Lambert (CCH), James Wright (Co-operatives UK), Alison Hands (Lincolnshire Co-op), Mili Patel (CCIN) and Claude Hendrickson MBE (CCH)
The UK’s Real Estate Investment & Infrastructure Forum (UKREiiF) aims to “connect people, places and businesses” to drive sustainable, inclusive and transformative investment and regeneration. This year, some of those businesses were co-operatives, collaborating to raise the profile of the co-op model as a tool to create people-powered housing.
The 2025 event, held in Leeds on 20-22 May, brought together over 16,000 professionals and was opened by Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner.
“I said last year that we would get Britain building again as part of our Plan for Change – new homes, new infrastructure projects, jobs, higher living standards, strong communities and a strong economy,” she said. “We will do this by working in partnership, by backing you to build, invest and succeed … Because our vision is not just building houses, but it’s building homes for people of our country and building the communities in which they live.”
The current parliament has a target of building 1.5 million homes, which, Rayner admitted, is a stretch. “But I want to be clear that our vision for housing is about so much more than hitting one target … These must be well-designed, decent homes for local people and they must come alongside the GP surgeries, schools and parks they need too.”
She also wants “to see new players, entrepreneurs and disruptors flourish. Small and medium enterprises, community-led housing projects and councils that can disrupt the market for the better. Radically changing what we build, and who builds it, transforming the system to make it more diverse and innovative.”
Angela Rayner MP
Deputy Prime Minister
