AN ARCHITECT has claimed York planners’ decision to back a street food complex in shipping containers was unlawful - and warned he may take it to judicial review.

Matthew Laverack has alleged that City of York Council’s recent approval of the Spark:York temporary development in Piccadilly breached the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).

He also complained that the authority had operated ‘blatant double standards’ over its handling of this application and of another scheme for temporary static caravans in Moor Lane, Dringhouses.

He said that after a pre-application inquiry had been lodged for the caravans, officers had written to say it was unlikely to receive officers’ support, as it constituted inappropriate development in the suburban location and failed to fit in with the character of the area in terms of character, form and design.

Mr Laverack said the two proposals were ‘fundamentally the same, being the temporary approval of re-locatable structures on sites used for warehousing.’

He said the planning committee chair had claimed at the end of a meeting that the two cases were ‘totally different situations,’ because one was only a pre-application query when the other was a full application. “This is erroneous,” he claimed.

He alleged the policies quoted against the Dringhouses scheme applied even more to the Piccadilly plans because of the greater sensitivity and prominence of the land, which is the site of the city’s old Reynards garage.

“The planning permission granted for the Piccadilly site is unlawful because it went against development control policies and there was no genuine material consideration to overcome the development plan objections.”

He said he was ‘minded to pursue’ an application for a judicial review of the decision.

A council spokeswoman, said: “We are confident that we followed all stages of the planning application correctly.

“We will respond robustly to defend this decision if there is a legal challenge.”