MORE details have emerged of long-term plans to regenerate Piccadilly and the area around the Eye of York.

The council unveiled its general vision for the ‘Castle Gateway’ area earlier this week. Fresh documents and plans published yesterday give more detail.

If all goes to plan, the Castle car park would go, so that the area immediately around Clifford’s Tower would become public open space. There would either be a new underground car park on the same site (which would cost a whopping £18 million) or else a new car park on the site of the Castle Mills car park on Piccadilly (cost: £7.5 million).

The ‘vision opportunity’ published yesterday shows a new footbridge across the Foss, as well as new mixed-use development on the Reynard’s Garage site, along the other side of Piccadilly and in a block on the Clifford’s Tower side of the Foss.

At the same time the York Museums Trust has revealed plans for an £18 million refurbishment of the Castle Museum, and English Heritage is pressing ahead with its plans for a controversial new visitor centre at Clifford’s Tower.

There are many questions yet to be answered. In 2003, for example, planning inspector Tony Bingham rejected the council-backed Coppergate Riverside proposals, noting that the design approach was ‘totally unacceptable in the context of the historic setting.’ Any attempts to build on the Castle side of the Foss will need to bear that in mind.

Cost is also going to be a factor.

But it is good to see a clear vision finally emerging for the area - one that involves the city council, the museums trust and other landowners apparently all singing to the same hymn sheet.