YoCo News (May)
In May we continued to develop ideas for how to grow our mixed-use neighbourhood.
What’s going on with York Central?
In our regular York Central news slot….
Jackie Sadek – a regular contributor to the Estates Gazette and Chief Operating Office for UK Regeneration – wrote a stellar piece about York Central and YoCo. To give you a flavour:
The consented masterplan is hugely competent – you would expect nothing less from Allies & Morrison – and clearly the original brief was to come up with a traditional new housing settlement treatment; that is, one that is predicated on homes needing cars. But that was then, and this is now. We’ve had a pandemic. And we have a climate change emergency. We have a main-line station on the East Coast Line. I would urge (and this is certainly where YoCo is) that this is the moment to be bold: take a leaf out of the original King’s Cross and bring forward a (mostly) pedestrianised scheme. Make a virtue of the land-locked nature of the site; York doesn’t need any more traffic. And King’s Cross has proven conclusively that successful real estate projects can be delivered without cars.
I would urge (and this is certainly where YoCo is) that this is the moment to be bold: take a leaf out of the original King’s Cross and bring forward a (mostly) pedestrianised scheme.
We have also spotted that the York Central Website has been updated. This included a news item about York Central partnership at UKREiiF (UK Real Estate investment & infrastructure Forum) sets out the aims for ‘a development partner to bring forward the ambitious plans to transform this 45 ha brownfield site adjacent to York Central railway station’. To tempt such partners there’s a glossy (okay, PDF) brochure which can be downloaded from here.
As ever as any more comes to light, we’ll keep you posted…
What are we doing already to get there? A map of the post it notes generates in the YoCo Change Makers Workshop
YoCo Change Makers – big ideas that emerged
On 8th May we ran a workshop exploring our approach to change: how can we make the changes we want to see? A big idea was the power of connecting hyperlocal community activity and strategic influencing. Write up here.
YoCo Grow Your Own Mixed Use Neighbourhood
On 14th May we explored how we wanted to grow our own mixed-use neighbourhood. This has led to continued conversations with Spark York (an interview with founders Sam and Tom was a central part of the workshop). These in turn have led to a concerted attempt to track down land ownership so we can explore “meanwhile” uses, and also thinking around the longer-term benefits of “incubator” projects like Spark. There will be a blog on the website as soon as we’re able!
Growing and Greening projects
In the both the Change Makers and Grow Your Own Mixed Use Neighbourhood workshops there was a lot of interest in starting with food growing. We’ll be getting stuck in with some growing in different parts of the Leeman Road area. If you’re interested in getting mucky hands and getting some vegetables in the ground, let us know.
Funding
We discussed a variety of potential projects – from an Arts Council bid led by Julia Davis to the government’s recently released levelling up and community ownership funding.