Steve Bletsoe is the NRLA’s Head of Business Development & Training and Wales, joining the NRLA in Feb 2022. He brings a wealth of experience in both UK property as well as politics. Steven founded the Homefinder Group in 2003 and led Homefinder UK as Managing Director until 2008, recognised as the country’s top property location company, working with private home buyers and liaising with residents and landlords affected by faulty cladding on high rise buildings in Cardiff. Steven has also worked as a case worker in the Welsh Parliament and been a Councillor in Bridgend County Borough Council since 2017 and Mayor of Bridgend from Jan 2021 and May 2022.
District Judge Michelle Campbell sits as a District Judge in the County and Family Court at Birkenhead, Merseyside, on the Northern Circuit. She has been a full-time judge since 2011 and sat as a Deputy District Judge from 2004 to 2011. Prior to 2011, she was a solicitor working in Liverpool for 19 years, specialising in Fatality, Employer’s Liability and Industrial Disease cases. In her work on the bench, she deals with family cases involving children and the wide civil jurisdiction, and regularly hears Housing Possession, ASBI and Housing Disrepair cases. She is a member of the National Housing Possession users’ group, chaired by Lord Justice Males.
Jonathan Davidson is a solicitor at Capsticks LLP where he represents social landlords and local authorities in all aspect of housing management and landlord and tenant law. He is highly experienced in dealing with both tenants and landlords, with his case load consisting entirely of housing matters including disrepairs. Before training as a solicitor, Jonathan worked at the Whitechapel Centre, a day centre for the homeless in Liverpool, for nine years helping people with drug and alcohol problems.
Alana Davies has a vast amount of experience in the private rented sector, she started her career in estate agency straight out of secondary school. Starting in the sales department she quickly moved over to lettings and worked her way through the ranks. For over 20 years Alana worked with landlords and tenants via a small independent agent, a corporate brand, and her own high street agency. Born and bred in South Wales she now lives in the midlands and has joined the NRLA to support landlords even further.
Michael Franks has been in the construction and property industry for over 30 years. He graduated in 1996 from LJMU with a Honours degree in Building Surveying. Subsequently he gained professional membership to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors in 1999 (MRICS status). After working for various regional and nationally recognised private practices in London, Liverpool and Manchester, Michael set up Franks Associates in 2004. Michael has a broad and deep knowledge of most aspects of Building Surveying, with part of his workload being regular instructions from certain leading 100 UK law firms for a wide range of construction and property related issues. Michael does take instructions for work nationwide, but predominately practices in the North West, London and Oxford.
Sarah Mansfield is a Partner specialising in leasehold Landlord and Tenant Law and Property Disputes at Excello Law. She is currently Vice President Liverpool Law Society
Louise Murphy is Head of Social Housing & Regeneration at MSB and has developed an in-depth knowledge of Social Housing law throughout her 15 year career. She has developed MSB’s Housing team into a formidable unit; she is tenacious and achieves outstanding results. Louise has comprehensive understanding of housing condition claims, housing & asset management and is able to offer Registered Providers focused and pragmatic advice. Louise enjoys achieving the best outcomes for clients in a robust and cost-effective manner whilst being part of a wider, driven team. Her approach is straight forward, to the point and gets the job done
Ben Reeve-Lewis has been a local authority enforcement officer dealing with harassment and illegal eviction for 35 years. He is also co-founder and Strategy Manager of Safer Renting, an independent non profit organisation providing a Tenancy Relations Officer service for 12 London boroughs and 5 in Suffolk, dealing with between 300 and 400 cases of serious harassment and illegal eviction each year. He has been a trainer of housing law since 2000 and is visiting lecturer in housing law at University of Greenwich and is contributing author to “Regulating the privately rented housing sector” published by Routledge books in 2023
Thomas Stockton is a Senior Associate Solicitor in the Social Housing team at MSB where he represents a large number of social housing associations. In particular, Tom specialises in disrepair, dealing with all aspects from pre-action protocol steps, to assessing liability and undertaking telephone ADR’s and settlement conferences. He also defends litigated disrepair claim brought against any client.
Hayley Webster is a qualified solicitor with over 15 years’ experience in civil litigation, previously a partner of a Liverpool Law firm and head of a Housing disrepair team, Hayley has now joined MLA as Operations Manager. Hayley is utilising her litigation knowledge and specific Housing disrepair experience to ensure the highest standard of reporting from the panel of experts at MLA
