Changes are afoot in Walmgate. Reporter ALEX ROSS talks to traders in the street.

TRADERS in Walmgate, York, have welcomed the many changes happening outside their front doors.

As they go about their business serving customers, student flats and a boutique hotel grow taller by the day as the street goes through a huge re-development.

Old buildings may have been reduced to rubble, but in their place will stand a new accommodation complex for 654 students, a new hotel - complete with a bar and restaurant - as well as new offices for The Press.

Stuart Bailey, CEO of Splendid Hospitality Group, said: "Sojourn Hotels, part of the Splendid Hospitality Group, will open the 101 bedroom Hotel Indigo York in Spring 2015.

"The Hotel Indigo York will be a boutique hotel with a distinctively local feel – from the art on the walls to locally influenced food and drink.

"The hotel construction is running according to plan and we are looking forward to playing our role in the York business and tourism community."

Business on the street - which range from newly opened to part of the furniture - all see the changes as good news.

Landlord Nicholas Cope, 39, run The Spread Eagle pub and is excited to welcome a new crop of students through the doors when the work is complete.

He said: "It's going to bring an influx of trade up and down Walmgate.

"At this moment in time we are suffering where we are because of the building work, but that's going to change, especially with the hotel being built.

"It's going to end up turning into a thriving street and we will probably find a lot more businesses opening and a lot more employment because it looks so much like a regeneration."

Bicis Y Mas, a bike shop and cafe, opened six weeks ago and co-owner Jane Thackray is looking forward to an increase in customers.

She added: "We feel really good about the hotel and if we look at Fossgate, which is really busy, it's spilling down to Walmgate.

"It would be nice for more things to open down here, but we are quite happy.

"We always felt this street was up and coming, and it always has a lot of individual traders here, which is why we like the area.

"For bars, shops and restaurants it's a really nice street and it will only get better."

Paula Turner, owner of Gifts Which Make You Smile, added: "It's definitely great news for business.

"We've noticed since the students came back how business has picked up, and knowing we will have lots more is fantastic."

Cllr Brian Watson, Guildhall ward councillor for City of York Council, said Walmgate has moved onwards and upwards in the last ten years.

"There was a small industrial part of the street that has been there for many a year and it was on the downside," said Cllr Watson.

"This is changing the face of Walmgate and what's going on there is interesting, and bringing a lot of life into the centre.

"One of our concerns was the student accommodation but that is working in a positive fashion.

"The hotel is bringing a corner of Walmgate into a more positive use than it was before and, all in all, I'm in favour of it."