Guildhall redevelopment plan hit by flood fears

City of York Council has drawn up multi-million pound plans to convert the former council offices into a business club and serviced office complex.

The planning application is currently being considered, but a submission by the Environment Agency (EA) shows that experts have serious concerns about flood risk.

An EA planning advisor says the Guildhall project has been wrongly classified as a minor development which would not need compensatory flood storage to be planned in.

The advisor has told the council to redo a flood risk assessment (FRA) to show the project would not result loss of flood water storage space, or to show how compensatory storage would be provided.

If the council cannot show that their plans will not damage flood storage space, the Environment Agency will have to maintain its objection to the application, the advisor’s letter adds.

“Production of an FRA will not in itself result in the removal of an objection.”

Other objections have been made to the plans from organisations including Historic England and York Conservation Trust.

Both organisations say they fully support the principle of development, and want to see the historic buildings brought back into use, but they have voices concerns about specific aspects of the plans.

The conservation trust say they are worried about the height of the proposed restaurant extensions - which would put a three storey building on the site of the current single storey building, blocking the river views from the back of 14 Lendal. The trust is also unhappy with some double height glazing on the extension, and what it calls “inappropriate” copper cladding and light brickwork.

Historic England experts have asked for careful conditions to be added to the planning permission to preserve some of the historic features, and they have asked for the secondary glazing plans for the Guildhall and the council chamber to the scrapped completely.