Wild York

Wild York is the collective identity of green spaces in York, beginning from a collaboration at York Design Week in 2021. Our aim is to enhance green space on a city wide scale, proactively including previously unrepresented people in improving natural infrastructure, connected habitats, cycling and walking routes, food provision and flood alleviation. We want to help exciting visions of the future take hold, making a city which works really well for the people and wildlife who live here, and naturally resilient to a changing climate.

We are building an interactive map of existing projects is here to show what there is to enjoy, and if you have the capacity, get involved with. There is a lot already out there to celebrate! Wild spaces you won’t have come across, community gardens and orchards, scenic routes and well connected habitats. Many of these are thanks to the enthusiasm and effort of committed volunteers over decades. We felt it was time to give them a proper platform so they can be found and appreciated as they deserve. Mapping out the green space means we can also see what’s missing, and shows the foundation to add to as we design our city together.

Beyond this map, Wild York is a growing network to help make this a greener and fairer city by facilitating distributed and bottom-up action. The idea is not only to share information, but to connect ideas and resources between the right people to make more ambitious projects happen better and faster across public, third sector and community groups. Like the mycelial network of a forest, helping the trees act as one. If you’re curious to know more, have suggestions, or want to be involved, do get in touch!