YoCo News (July and August)
We had our monthly Open Meeting on 25th July – as ever all that was discussed is written up as a monthly news update.
York Central Update
The current Project Director is filling in between Ian Gray leaving and York Central Partnership appointing a new director – which is still to be done.
York Central Partnership are currently focused on building the £100m+ infrastructure. John Sisk and Sons appointed: https://www.yorkcentral.info/2022/07/20/major-milestone-as-work-is-set-to-begin-at-york-central/
York Central Partnership are currently seeking one financial and project management partner to do the whole site. YoCo will be meeting with York Central Partnership in a couple of weeks and with Greg Dyke, chair of the Strategic Board in September. YoCo has been in ongoing discussions with other members of the Strategic Board: York Civic Trust, University of York and JRF/JRHT and City of York Council.
The National Railway Museums plans for a new hall that would connect the two parts of their site over the current Leeman Road was passed on 5th August. YoCo objected to the plans arguing that a more creative solution that enabled 24h walking and cycling access through the building could have been found that would also enhance the interpretation of the collections. YoCo hope to find ways of collaborating with local people to engage with the NRM as York Central develops, to better connect new and existing communities with the city and the museum.
YoCo ran a film screening in collaboration with Local Futures and the Festival of Ideas
Festival of Ideas and World Localisation event
YoCo partnered with World Localisation Day on 20th June as part of York Festival of Ideas. World Localisation Day issued a new documentary and we showed that as part of the event. Jane Hustwit, a member of YoCo, wrote a blog covering the event (and there’s a link to the film from this).
YoCo are work with Spark York to develop proposals for considering how “meanwhile use” on the York Central site can be re-thought as an incubator where we sow the seeds for a range of businesses which will drive the local economy as the site develops.
Grow Your Own Co-Owned Neighbourhood – meanwhile use / incubator
Following an event in May (blogged here) we are working with Spark York to put together a proposal for both of the Foundry Buildings. It would be more than “meanwhile use” – it would be an incubator to grow the businesses to shape York Central’s economy, with a focus on local wealth creation
YoCo will comment on the currently open consultation on York’s Economic Strategy 2022-2032.
On one of the hottest days of the year we came together to cook and eat local food and consider the relationshiops between learning, local food and economics - a conversation held together by the idea of ‘exchange’.
York Central Learning Hub, Local Food and Economics as Exchange event
On 18th July we ran an event – funded by the University of York – in collaboration with Choose 2 and Food Circle to develop ideas around learning, local food and economics.
The idea of the workshop was to live and try out some of the emerging ideas so the workshop was based around cooking and eating! Read more here.
In October we’ll be focused on local growing in the Leeman Road area with an event as part of York Environment Week
Growing Green Spaces
Penny proposed an idea for a green spaces walking tour linked into York Environment Week which we could then make into a map using the Growing Green Spaces funding. This could be followed by a picnic, or meeting inside St Barnabas (depending on the weather!). It could be used not only to connect up Edible York’s apple store and the beds looked after by Friends of Leeman Park but also to think creatively about the parts of York Central site that will become green. This has since been confirmed for Sat Oct 1st, 2-4pm. Read more here.
Funding
We are pondering ideas around funding. We thought about how to develop ideas, how to build partnerships, when to get into legal partnerships and what types of funding will be needed to start to build stuff. We’ve explored very roughly what scales of money are we looking at for different phases.
YoCo have been looking at Community Share Issue. Two YoCo Directors went to an event held by the legal firm Wrigley’s on the potential for cryptocurrencies for community groups to raise money.
The LEP has set up a working group to explore how York and the LEP area could access the government’s Shared Prosperity Fund (“Levelling Up” money). Penny Bainbridge (one of the YoCo Directors) is part of this conversation in her role as Chair of York Environment Forum. There are likely to be general funding pots that will be open to applications from community groups, based around key “streams” or themes.
Arts Council England fund
Julia Davis has had an idea to develop banners out of sewing squares based on post it notes collected as part of My York Central and YoCo work. Rather than seeking funding – which is long, complicated and uncertain, might be a way of just starting to do the sewing now. Possibly at future in person Open Meetings.
Our next Open Meeting will be 19th September, 7-.8.30pm online. Register here.