Event Information

Fiona is part of Wrigleys’ Community-Led Housing team and she advises several housing based organisations including community-led housing hubs, cohousing and community led housing groups, housing associations, almshouses and charitable organisations. 

Fiona advises charities and social enterprises on all aspects of charity and company law and governance, commercial arrangements, trading and fundraising, mergers and collaborative working. Fiona heads up Wrigleys’ charity and social economy practice in our Newcastle office.  Fiona is a trustee of VONNE (Voluntary Organisations Network North East) and is recognised as an expert in charity law by legal directories Chambers & Partners and Legal 500.

Peter advises charities, their trading subsidiaries, public bodies, other not-for-profit organisations and social enterprises. His areas of work cover advising charities and social enterprises on:

• Raising social finance, including in relation to share and bond issues and other debt and equity investments.
• Structural transactions such as mergers, reorganisations and joint ventures.
• Operational matters including commercial contracts, data protection, intellectual property, agreements for services, subcontracting and funding arrangements.

Peter is a member of the Charity Law Association. 

Emma Ridge is a partner in our community-led housing team

Emma advises on all the property aspects of community led housing, from initial options or conditional contracts to bespoke leases for individual groups.  She has spent the last few years working with cohousing groups, some of whom have finished their build and some of whom are just starting on that journey.  Recently, she has been working with a number of community land trusts including work with Yorspace to roll out a model of mutual home ownership that can be replicated.  She acts for cohousing groups, community land trusts and cooperatives. 

Originally from the South, Bill Phelps has lived in the Chapeltown area of Leeds for the last fifty years and is one of the founder members of Chapeltown Cohousing - aka ChaCo.