First people move in to YorSpace York’s first housing co-op

The YorSpace development, off Tudor Road in Acomb, is part of the Lowfield Green Housing Co-operative (LGHC) which is a resident-led co-housing project focused on community connection and low-cost, energy-efficient living.

Laura Patrickson, one of the first residents to move in, said that it was ‘an emotional moment being back in York’, having moved out to the city’s outskirts to live with family.

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Her two daughters, nearly nine and six, now have their own bedrooms for the first time.

Laura said: “Being back in York in a space that was our own was just really exciting. York’s quite an expensive place to buy. Finding somewhere that offered more space for a growing family is really valuable.”

The new development is rooted in the idea of neighbourly living and shared responsibility – something that appealed to Laura.

She said: “We talk about it being York’s first housing co-op. But really what we’re doing isn’t that new. It’s the way people used to live before people became much more socially mobile… so we’re kind of recreating a village.

Residents on the site when it was being built (Image: Provided)

“It really helps having that community to share stressful moving things.”

YorSpace is a community land trust – a non-profit organisation that owns and develops land for the benefit of the community, with residents sharing tools, babysitting, and helping each other settle in.

Sophia Cheng, who is set to move in soon with her two-year-old son, was drawn to the project for similar reasons, saying that both her and her partner wanted to raise their child in a setting where families could rely on each other. 

Ms Cheng said: “Co-housing is a kind of millennial rebrand of how communities used to exist. We’re really excited to live more communally… and how we can support each other on very practical things like school runs.”

Sophia Cheng outside the housing co-op (Image: Provided)

The homes have been built to high environmental standards, with residents already noticing lower energy costs saying that the homes were ‘lovely and toasty and warm, and it’s not really costing anything’.

James Neward, co-founder of YorSpace and a resident himself, said the project aimed to make sustainable living affordable and was inspired by LILAC, a community in Leeds where residents worked together to “be living as part of a sustainable community”.

Mr Neward said the idea was to offer homes that “made them affordable and sustainable not just for this generation, but for generations after that.”