Deansgate in Manchester is like a storyboard of the Housing sector in 2017. It has some wonderful architecture from centuries past, it has homeless people in desperate need, there are people and suits with papers and policies and yet looming large in everyone’s eyeline is a giant, game-changing tower block.

Deansgate was my route from exhibition hall to drinks reception, from taxi rank to apartments, from restaurant to bed. It was my bellwether, my compass and my avenue of reflection. Deansgate in the rain on the Wednesday afternoon of conference, head down, hands in pockets, gave me time to reflect on where we were and what we were doing.

I can still remember seeing the Aberfan disaster on a TV, the only one in our neat, suburban close, huddled round with our neighbours wondering what had gone wrong – how on earth it could have happened. My mind was filled with my feelings and memories as I left the football field in 1989 to find out how my beloved Nottingham Forest had fared in the FA Cup semi-final to be greeted with scenes of desperation, of death and panic.

I glanced up from my musings to check the weather ahead and caught sight of the precarious looking, lego-like Hilton Hotel with its bar and dance floor gazing back down from the 23rd overhanging floor, with its further 24 floors of apartments perched on top and was drawn again to Grenfell. I had checked Twitter that night before putting my head on the pillow and seen the words “fire” and “towerblock” trending. Modern media, but the same gut wrenching feelings that I’d had back in 1966 and 1989.

Heading towards the conference and the exhibition, to the talk of partnerships and people and changing lives, I wondered how the game would change? Just a few weeks earlier in the warm sun on the Isle of Wight, Bastille had innocently thundered out their massive song reflecting on what we had lost in the fire, fire, fire. We don’t even know what was lost at Grenfell a few days later and yet we desperately hope that this time something will be gained. And quickly. That something game changing will be learned from a disaster that, like Aberfan and Hillsborough, will be forever etched into the hearts and minds of our beloved but fragile country. And that, whatever that learning may be, we can all be sure of one thing, our sector will never be the same again.

Turning left, I headed back to the warmth and normality of CIH2017, leaving behind the deep and desperate reflections from Deansgate in the rain.

This is a personal reflection by Ivor Reveley, Director People Development.