HERITAGE campaigners in York are calling for a unique building with fascinating links to the city’s past to be saved.

Demolitions notices have appeared outside the long-empty 79 Fulford Road and developers say they are checking out the legal position before pushing on with redevelopment plans for the site.

An application to demolish has gone into the city council’s planning department, raising the possibility that 79 Fulford Road could be torn down. The building incorporates a nearly 200-year-old stone facade that was designed by John Harper in 1834 as part of the entrance to the Theatre Royal, and was moved to its current home when the theatre was remodelled in 1879.

Architect Lee Vincent of dc-architecture said they have no intention of demolishing it without a development plan for the rest of the site.

Instead, he said the prior notification document is a way of establishing the legal situation, as the building is neither listed nor part a Conservation Area, before the land owner and developer decide what they want to do with the land.

He said: “We do not intend to turn up with bulldozers in 21 days.”

But, Mr Vincent added, they would hope to reuse the old stone work somehow and would not want to see it lost.

And although no plans have yet been drawn up, Mr Vincent said he believed the land, which stretches back the boundary with St George’s RC Primary School, would be ideal for small first-time buyer homes. A public consultation event will likely be held before any formal proposals go ahead, he added.

Fishergate’s ward councillor Dave Taylor, the city’s former “heritage champion”, has already spoken up to defend the buildings.

He said he would not want to see the facade nor some of the buildings behind it lost, and said he and other people in the area had been unhappy about the derelict site - most recently used by a children’s nursery - for many years.

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Cllr Taylor said: “I contacted the council eight years ago to try to have the site tidied up - especially the fine coach houses hidden away at the back. The owner did a bit of tidying up but has left the buildings to decay until now.

“I’m not averse to the re-development of the former nursery premises - it’s just a shed inside, but the historic facade should be preserved, as should the coach houses behind the former nursery. It is a disgrace they have been left for so long.”

And while the building is just outside the Fulford Road Conservation Area, demolishing it would have a “negative impact” on buildings directly opposite, which are in the conservation area, Cllr Taylor added.