The party conference season is always a bit like the start of school term, you half expect everyone to be turning up with their new pencil cases and names embroidered onto their new winter coats.

They are the start of the political year and a chance to mingle with politicians without their minders and to witness the drunken shenanigans of MPs, journalists and all of the rest of us there trying to influence them.

This year the conferences will take on a particularly frenzied feel as they are the last ones before a general election. For the parties it is a chance to make statements about their likely manifesto pledges meanwhile rallying support from their delegates. It is an opportunity for them announce big policy announcements, or re-announce them making them sound very different from the last time and for them to differentiate themselves from the other parties.

For those of us on the fringe it is about shaping policies and putting a voice to the issue. We have a lot of competition with a Health Hotel, a Climate Clinic and hundreds of fringe events it is easy to get drowned out, particularly if you’re faced with more persistent and hardy flyer-ers who battle against the seaside winds to press a flyer into unwitting delegates hands. We will be launching the RIBA manifesto at the conferences which challenges the three political parties to include our simple proposals on retrofitting, public procurement and design in their own manifestos.

We will also be hosting our fringe debates, ‘The Rise of the YIMBY: can Government policies incentivise development?’ as part of the Urban Hub, a group of organisations debating issues around urban issues from transport to the built environment. We expect our debate to have a particular pertinence to what is increasingly for all three parties a localist agenda, devolving policy down to a local level. But with local politicians too often elected on an anti-development ticket we will look at whether it is possible to incentivise locally-led development to make it attractive enough to be encouraged by local communities.

Probably the most interesting part is that it is a chance to take the temperature of the political landscape, to catch up with MPs and other key organisations and think tanks and to listen to the speeches from the conference floor. That and go to the evening parties to watch embarrassing dancing.

Anna Scott-Marshall
Head of Public Affairs, RIBA