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. 

Sarah Williams is an author, a tutor, an artist, a writing coach, and as of 2025 is the managing director of York Creatives CIC, a community that looks after York’s artists and those working in the creative industries.

In this episode we talk about the social value organisations like York creatives provide to their local areas. We explore some of the challenges faced by social enterprises and non profits in trying to deliver work that isn’t profit motivated.

We talk about the state of western civilisation in 2026 and how our hunger for growth has put us back into a state of feudalism - an uncomfortable realisation after all of modernity’s promises of technology democratising access to each new thing we’re sold a monthly subscription to.

But after all that we return this central idea of community wealth building and the positive impact it can have on our local area, if we choose to prioritise community wealth over individual wealth.

Find out more about York Creatives at https://instagram.com/yorkcreatives

Tash Almond is a facilitator and systems change practitioner with over 25 years experience working across communities, and the voluntary and social enterprise sectors. 

She is a director of Good Organisation, which supports disadvantaged people to share in the economic benefits of tourism, she runs projects of community-led research with Outside Influence, and is also a senior programme co-ordinator at Local Trust.

In this episode we talk a lot about community led tourism. What it means, why we should care, and how it can offer York as a city, plenty of additional benefits by running community led tourism initiatives alongside the existing tourism industry. 

Why should we, as communities, own assets?

The second guest on the York Community Wealth Building Podcast is Owen Powell, lecturer at York St John, director of SPACE YORK CIC and author of the Fairer Futures for York report for Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF).

We spend time discussing:

• What 'community wealth building' (CWB) - often seen as an academic term - actually means for the average person

• Examples of where it has worked well elsewhere that we can learn from

• What some of the challenges are when applying CWB principles in York

• Why CWB might just succeed in York

• What the future of the region could look like if we put policies in place to stop extractive practices

Sue Williamson is CEO of Tang Hall SMART CIC, a York based community music and arts social enterprise.

She’s also the CEO of Tang Hall Employment charity, and Chair of York Social Enterprise Coalition.

She was previously a music subject leader, SENCO and English teacher at Burnholme Community College, and was instrumental in the campaign to save the building for community use when it was closed as a school.