This has been a whirlwind of a week! It was a big day for Yorspace, my LiA organization, on Wednesday when several social investors from their first project came to for a panel discussion and site visit to see how it had turned out. The social investors also fund York Community Energy, with whom Yorspace is doing a very exciting collaboration to install community solar on the roofs of some of their homes. In a community energy scheme, residents don't have to pay for the panels themselves; instead, the capital is sourced from a community share raise and is collectively owned by the community, with profit from selling extra energy going to community projects or charities. Community solar doesn't just have to be in residential developments, although that is what Yorspace is pursuing; it can go on top of any building willing to participate, like a school or a doctor's office! I had heard a bit about the collaboration before but not met the people leading it, so it was really valuable to get to talk about it face to face and ask them lots of questions. 

In helping show the the social investor teams around the development and answering their questions, I got a sense for how important it is to disseminate knowledge about successful developments to funders and to other community groups doing the same thing, and how that is best done. In delivering York's first housing co-op, Yorspace has shown proof of concept, and events like these help get that message out that is worth investing in the next one and worth scaling up. 

Other than the visit, I've been continuing to work on getting data about York's affordability in order to help make the case that building more affordable housing is necessary. As you might remember, last week I looked at Open Data and census data, but this week I took a step up and scraped listing platforms such as RightMove and Zoopla to find out what people are paying for houses in York and North Yorkshire right now. 

As someone who has been interested in co-ops for a long time, it's also been interesting to me to help out with the back-end side, liasing with Lowfield Green Housing Co-op to sort out issues like how residents can report maintenance requests. I've read lots about co-ops in my classes and volunteered with a few, but this is really the rubber hitting the road in terms of seeing one emerge and come into its own, with lots of bumps along the way and lots of great moments. 

Finally, I've been trying to get outside lots to enjoy the beautiful June weather! Over the weekend, my friend and I spent the day hiking 30 kilometres into the countryside outside York along the river Ouse. As we walked, the impact of the UK's Right to Roam was obvious in the landscape: every farmer's field has to have a public path along the side, and every fence has to have a step-up for pedestrians to get over. It is often said that rural areas are inherently worse for pedestrians, that walkability and sustainable design are only for the "big city." The Right to Roam concretely refutes that, and I would love to see more rural places make space for people, not just cars.

Incidentally, we saw deer, cows, sheep and geese -- a veritable Noah's ark, right down to the rainbow that appeared as we were arriving back in York!

P.S: Did you know that poppies like to grow in wheat fields, and that sheep will follow you as you walk through their field? Half endearing, half disconcerting.