KEEPING the community involved in the York Central plans is key to making sure the ambitious project can be realised, according to a former government cities advisor.

Lord John Shipley, a Lib Dem peer and the party’s spokesman on decentralisation and the Northern Powerhouse, visited the 72-hectare site earlier this week. He urged city bosses to maximise the involvement of local people in designs, and to make sure the finances stack up to convince decision-makers.

He said they could “never do too much consultation” and added that local support would matter when it comes to persuading the Government to back the project.

Lord Shipley, once leader of Newcastle City Council, also said the site was unparalleled in the north, and possibly the UK, in its potential.

He added: “I hadn’t realised how big it was.

“It has enormous potential to help solve the housing crisis in the area, and to deliver a whole lot more investment in hi-tech jobs.

“I have never visited a site that had so few barriers to being completed. There are very few problems, and it needs something on it. It’s a site that is crying out for a solution.”

The former railway land behind York Station has been hailed as a “King’s Cross of the North” with the opportunity to create as many as 2,500 new homes and enough office space for 7,000 new jobs.

City of York Council has a partnership with Network Rail and the National Railway Museum to develop the land, and Lord Shipley said a successful development on the land could be of fundamental importance to growth in the North.

With government departments including the Treasury and the DCLG all backing it, people in York can be confident the ambitious plans for jobs and public spaces will not squeezed out by developers who want more lucrative flats, he added.

Early this summer a consultation will be launched on the options for the site - including different possible routes for an access road, and the mix of homes and office space.

Cllr Keith Aspden, the council’s deputy leader who took Lord Shipley round the site, said a masterplan would then be drawn up setting out broad principals for buildings, and the mix of homes and employment space.