Booking is now live for the third session in this series, which will take place on Wednesday 9 March at 12:00-13:00.

At this session we will discuss Housing.

We will be hearing from Neil McKenna of University of Leeds and James Allen, of Turning Lives Around.

Neil McKenna is a PhD researcher at the University of Leeds. He works with community-led housing groups in Leeds and West Yorkshire, undertaking action research to support better place-making, democracy and social justice in housing. Neil is also an urban Planner with Tibbalds Planning & Urban Design and a chartered member of the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI).

James Allen started working in the homelessness sector over 15 years ago as a support worker at a hostel in the centre of Leeds. Since then he has worked for three other Yorkshire-based charities in a variety of roles across development, quality and operational management. In 2017 James took on the role of implementing the Beacon service for Turning Lives Around. Beacon is a Leeds wide supported housing service for individuals who experience multiple disadvantage.

Book your place HERE.

About ‘Ideas for a More Equitable Leeds’

A bi-weekly seminar series presented by Voluntary Action Leeds and Leeds ACTS! –  acknowledging, challenging and exploring solutions to rising inequalities in Leeds.

Each of these online lunchtime seminars, hosted by Peg Alexander, will address an area of inequality:

• Money (this session took place on 9 February)
• Environment & Greenspace (this session took place on 23 February)
• Housing
• Food
• Health & Wellbeing
• Education, Skills & Employment

You’ll hear from two speakers, one providing input from an academic perspective and one providing a community perspective. After the speakers give a brief introduction to the topic, Peg will open up a Q&A session between attendees and the speakers, seeking to identify one or two key actions the city should undertake to reduce the causes of that inequality.

At the end of the series we’ll be sharing a report outlining the key outcomes of the seminars.

We hope you will join us over the lunch hour as we come together as a city to discuss the challenge of rising inequalities and how we can work towards a more equitable city.

Dates for your diary

Every seminar will be held between 12noon & 1pm and we’ll be sharing further details soon.

In the meantime, if you would like to express an interest in attending, please email carl.robertshaw@val.org.uk and we will contact you with the details as soon as they are available.

• Wednesday 23 March
• Wednesday 6 April
• Wednesday 20 April