SPR Winter Celebration Drinks, The Betjeman Arms

11 November 2021

SPR looks forward to the festive season

The SPR Annual Dinner may have once again fallen foul of the uncertainty created by the pandemic, but the Society showed its intention to move back towards normality by holding a celebratory drinks in the run-up to Christmas.

It was great to see around 60 SPR members gathered underneath the capacious canopy of London’s St Pancras International station at an event generously sponsored by Oxford Economics.

Early in the evening, Lucy Greenwood performed her final tasks as outgoing SPR chair by awarding the SPR research prizes and by thanking Rita Gosrani for her contribution as Membership Secretary over the past four years.

Lucy presented the Under-30s prize to Yasemin Engin of Capital Economics for her paper on Estimating the Natural Vacancy Rate in European Offices. The Open prize was awarded to Dennis Schoenmaker and Hans Vrensen of AEW for Climate: Informed Real Estate Returns in Europe.

Members were then able to return to the main business of the evening – getting to know new acquaintances and catching up with old friends.  Although the event lasted well into the night, only winding up around 11, the drinks kept flowing, while there were also some tasty canapés for sustenance.   

Tim Horsey