#05: James Neward - YorSpace

James Neward is a designer and community-led housing enabler, with expertise in low carbon architecture, retrofit & community led projects.Throughout his career he’s delivered a range of environmentally conscious residential, commercial and community projects, with a focus in championing natural bio-based construction methods.He’s co-founder of YorSpace, a Community Benefit Society + Land Trust that locks York land and buildings away into community ownership. They’ve recently delivered 14 affordable homes in partnership with York’s first Housing Co-op at their Lowfield Green site in Acomb, with phase two starting later this year which will see the addition of 6 flats and a community space.In this conversation we talk a lot about co-operatives and the benefit that using the co-operative structure has not just for the members, but also how that could extrapolate out to a society if we saw more people coming together to run businesses co-operatively.We discuss some of the challenges that James and the YorSpace team have come up against in trying to build mutually owned homes, particularly in finding affordable borrowing costs from lenders who see mutual ownership as a risk rather than a mitigation of risk. We then talk about what could be next for YorSpace, as they begin to look at supporting others in the city to use the community land trust they’ve built, to help bring more assets into community ownership. YorSpace was built as an asset for the city, not just as a vehicle to allow Lowfield Green to happen, so if you’re someone with an idea that could involve a community building - this podcast is for you.I’m Ben Porter, and this is the York Community Wealth Building podcast, brought to you by Fieldwork.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wearefieldwork.substack.com