THREE viable routes for a £37 million new access road into York Central have been identified – one of which runs across a Millennium green and another crosses a community garden.

A report says officers examined six potential routes into the 72 hectare teardrop shaped development site behind York railway station, where up to 1,500 new homes are set to be built alongside 100,000 square metres of commercial space creating thousands of new jobs.

It said they would all have to cross a railway line, with differing levels of engineering complexity and costs between the optional routes.

It said three options, all coming into the site from Poppleton Road and labelled options B, C and D, had been ruled out because they could not be delivered by 2021, as was needed to bring in necessary funding.

That left three routes judged to be ‘technically deliverable within the required timescale’: two from Water End, labelled Option A1 and A2, and one from Holgate Road, labelled Option E.

The report, produced by director of economy and place Neil Ferris to a meeting today of City of York Council’s executive, says A1 would have to cross the East Coast Mainline twice at a height of 22 metres.

It said A2 would avoid A1’s engineering complexity by moving the junction away from the existing Water End Bridge, and it would only have to cross the mainline once.

However, it would take the route across an area of open space called Millennium Green, which was leased to the Millennium Green Trust (MGT) to maintain as an area of open space.

Option E would go from Holgate Road near the Fox pub and rise up an embankment to a bridge crossing a line, which would start on the site of the current Holgate Community Garden.

The report said it would be necessary to assess community impact and seek the views of residents and stakeholders directly.

It said a consultation on the access options was set to take place in August/September, with a decision on the preferred access option in October. That would be followed by a master plan consultation in November, then the submission of a planning application next March to be determined next July.

Steve Maxwell, chair of the Green trust, said it would be disappointing if the road went across its land, after all the work that had been put into transforming a former area of scrubland.

However, the trust had always been aware under the terms of its lease that the land might be required at some stage.

Local residents have been battling for some time to save Holgate Community Garden from destruction by the access road and persuaded the council to list it as an asset of community value (ACV) last year.

David Barrett, of the Friends of Holgate Community Garden Group, has said previously the ‘little pocket of green space’ was home to a variety of wildlife and had great value for children in an urban environment.