The Future of Housing in York

The York and District Branch of the Geographical Association hosted a truly inspiring lecture on Wednesday 27th September at Bootham School. Michael Jones, Head of Housing Delivery and Asset Management from City of York Council gave a deep insight into the city’s new-build programme. From the community-based planning stage which enables local residents to determine what they want, through to the Passivhaus design, which not only uses far less embedded carbon in construction but runs at zero carbon once it’s completed.

Michael’s determination to ‘build better’ than the standard planning regulations would demand will hopefully lead the way towards the net-zero sustainable urban living. Many of the ideas he uses such as community gardens, a fruit tree per house and connection to nature, were principles first developed by Joseph Rowntree in his ground-breaking New Earswick development at the start of the last century. Joseph Rowntree was inspired to create this model village after his son, Seebohm Rowntree, former Bootham School student, researched poverty in York and determined that people did not choose to be poor but were locked into poverty by accident of birth. He argued that positive intervention to alleviate their appalling quality of life was needed.