Government minister explores York's ‘Teardrop’ site (From York Press)
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Government minister explores York's ‘Teardrop’ site
9:18am Saturday 16th March 2013 in News
A GOVERNMENT minister has visited York to explore how work on one of the city’s key development sites can be kickstarted.
Nick Boles, parliamentary under secretary of state for planning, met City of York Council leader James Alexander and senior officials from the authority to discuss the York Central “teardrop” site. Progress on the site stalled in 2009 when the search for a developer was halted amid the credit crunch. It is the largest brownfield site in Europe, covering almost 37 hectares stretching from York Station to the former British Sugar factory.
Coun Alexander said: “The development of York Central is crucial so we can continue to grow the city’s economy, meet our long-term office development needs and address our expanding population’s need for new homes.
“At the same time, the development will be regenerating a very large, underused and unsightly area of land in the city. The potential is huge and, through meeting Nick Boles and lobbying Government for Critical Infrastructure investment, we hope to finally be in a position to move York Central forwards.”
The council hopes Critical Infrastructure funding, designed to support “economically important growth sites”, will be announced in next week’s Budget.
York Central and other stalled development sites in York were also being showcased to international property investors at this week’s MIPIM conference in Cannes, France.
Comments(5)
my_two_peneth
says...
9:30am Sat 16 Mar 13
pedalling paul wrote:It has to start somewhere :-)
Not wise to place most of York's future housing need eggs into a single basket.
carl19692
says...
9:52am Sat 16 Mar 13
Let the builders keep their exclusive developments and instead of asking for the properties to cover S106 maybe the builders would consider offering a cash sum to the council to assist its building projects.
Yes , i admit, this would lead to an amount of segregation but at the same time lead to a reducton in the amount of housing benefit being paid, the builders dislike of social tenants in their developments and much needed social housing.
Or as i am sure will be pointed out, by the usual suspect, i am talking b******s ;)
again
says...
11:21am Sat 16 Mar 13
The financial incentives for not owning a car but simply renting one occasionally do exist.
Unfortunately we have been so gulled into an emotional attachment to these consumer durables that many now find it unthinkable.
meme
says...
4:54pm Mon 18 Mar 13
The densities required to achieve the numbers of homes suggested means only 6 storey apartments will satisfy the densities ie 3500...Is that what York needs/wants?
Plus the 1 million sq ft of offices and the transport interchange and public open space not to mention the 200,000 sq ft of retail mean this has to be the Tardis rather than a fixed boundary site!
CoYC have managed to get it all wrong again .They have based densities etc off a completly changed economic model and yet continue to plough on regardless wasting our money still further.
It needs to go back to drawing board; reconsider just what in reality could be built today;dump idea of access over the railway lines from the southern boundary... that's just too expensive..and come up with realistic densities etc.
Last time they tried to sell it the deal fell flat on its face as the Councils figures were completly wrong and made assumptions that those of us, living in the real world, understood were wrong. They were told this but wont listen.
Its potentially a great site but in today's world its virtually imposible to develop without huge injections of capital to access it which will NEVER be repaid as after clean up costs and affordable housing etc it does not work financially even if the land was free
To base the Local plan off the premis that this will provide 3500 or so of the homes York needs is folly in the extreme and we will all live to regret it
pedalling paul says...
9:23am Sat 16 Mar 13