Co-founder

LILAC Co-Housing

LILAC (Low Impact Living Affordable Community) is the UK's first affordable ecological co-housing development, consisting of 20 households in Leeds built using straw-bale construction and a Mutual Home Ownership Society model.

Impact: Pioneered the Mutual Home Ownership Society (MHOS) model, making eco co-housing financially accessible to low-income households. Featured in national media and government housing policy discussions.

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Lead

Climate Action Leeds

City-wide climate mobilisation through a 'hub and spoke' model, connecting grassroots communities and organisations to reach zero carbon by the 2030s.

Impact: Engaged 8,700+ people across Leeds. Produced the Leeds Doughnut Economics Portrait and a Mid-Point Review (2023). Named in the Leeds Climate Emergency declaration.

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Co-founder

Kirkstall Valley Development Trust

A community development trust working to protect and enhance the Kirkstall Valley area of Leeds, including managing Kirkstall Valley Park as a community green space.

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Creator

Leeds Plan B Manifesto

A creative and activist resource offering an alternative vision for Leeds: a plan B for the city that centres ecological sustainability, social justice, and community power.

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Co-founder

Remaking Places Card Deck

A creative activist resource: a card deck designed to help communities and practitioners reimagine and transform urban spaces, used in workshops and community engagement sessions.

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Lead

Leeds Co-Production Lab

A research and practice lab exploring new models of co-production between universities, communities, and public services in Leeds, generating knowledge through collaborative action.

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Creator

Climate Action Leeds Newspaper

A community newspaper produced as a creative activist resource to support grassroots climate action in Leeds, distributing accessible information and mobilising community engagement.

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Principal Investigator

Transformational Routemapping for Urban Environments (TRUE)

A multi-sector EPSRC-funded initiative developing a diagnostic platform to help UK cities tackle interconnected challenges: inequality, housing shortages, carbon dependency, and infrastructure congestion, through a socio-technical systems approach.

Impact: Produced an open-licence digital platform and training guidance, piloted with Leeds City Council Breakthrough Projects and designed for adoption across UK and international cities.

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Co-Investigator

ESRC Seminar Series: Collaborative Housing and Community Resilience

A six-seminar series bringing together six UK universities and the UK Cohousing Network to examine housing access, affordability, sharing economies, green technology, ecological citizenship, and community resilience.

Impact: Established a shared frame of reference for cohousing research terminology and concepts across UK academia, combining international expert presentations with visits to community housing schemes.

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Principal Investigator

Developing a Housing Model Based on the Status-Quality Trade-Off Theory

Research applying status-quality trade-off theory to housing markets in Hanoi, Vietnam, using hedonic price index techniques and a survey of 1,000 residents to model house price dynamics, market segmentation, and equitable housing access.

Impact: Demonstrated a replicable analytical model for understanding housing market segmentation in rapidly urbanising Asian cities, with implications for equitable housing policy.

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Principal Investigator

Communities in Crisis

A Connected Communities scoping study examining how communities develop self-reliance, resilience, and empowerment in times of crisis, situated within the 'triple crunch' of financial collapse, climate change, and resource depletion.

Impact: Mapped innovative community responses to UK austerity cuts, identifying how crisis simultaneously intensifies pressures and spurs alternative models of resource management and mutual aid.

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Principal Investigator

Autonomous Geographies: Activism and Everyday Life in the City

A two-year ESRC-funded study examining autonomous geographies: spaces where people create non-capitalist, collective forms of politics, identity, and citizenship, through case studies of eco-communities, radical social centres, and anti-privatisation networks.

Impact: Generated foundational thinking on prefigurative politics and urban autonomy, disseminated through a public website, accessible report, and video documentation reaching academic and activist audiences.

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Director

Clean Energy Leeds

A new community co-operative for Leeds developing community renewables to create a people powered green energy revolution. We are developing the North of England's largest community owned wind turbine.

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Cofounder

Leeds Community Homes

Paul was a cofounder of Leeds Community Homes in 2015 to help support pioneering projects like Lilac Grove across Leeds and the UK.

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Cofounder

Leeds Doughnut economics

We are a coalition committed to bringing Leeds within the safe and just place of doughnut economics

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Director

People Powered Homes

People Powered Homes is the Community Led Housing enabler supporting groups through the process of creating community led homes where people are in the driving seat.

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