Green Party reveals its city blueprint

This is the vision that York’s Green Party has for the city centre over the next 20 years.

Their ideas have been put to City of York Council as part of the latest consultation phase on the City Centre Area Action Plan.

This will form part of the Local Development Framework (LDF) – a document that will define the council’s strategy for economic development, leisure, heritage and transport over the next two decades.

Andy Chase, the Green parliamentary candidate for York Central, said: “We welcome the chance for a fresh look at the city that the LDF brings and we really hope that our ideas and those of other people will go into the mix and create something that is useful and positive.”

He said the council’s blueprint document was too rooted in the promotion of retail – which was not realistic at a time of rocketing prices and job losses.

He said the council’s retail strategy should focus on maintaining the health of existing shopping streets, rather than creating more.

Mr Chase said: “We don’t want lots of big retail developments such as the proposed extension of Castle Piccadilly and the new centre that is being proposed behind the railway station.

“We should be supporting York’s distinctive ‘little shops’.

“It is these traditional streets that attract people to York – you can get big chain stores anywhere.”

Extending the hours of the city centre pedestrian-only zone is also on the Green Party’s wish list.

Mr Chase said: “The idea is that if you open up the foot streets to traffic later on, it will encourage more people to stay and shop a bit longer.

“Shops might then decide to open longer and we might be able to foster more of a café culture in the city. At the moment, cars come in at 4.30pm, everybody disappears and then the pubs open.”

He said the York Greens were also in favour of road pricing and increasing the number of late- night buses.

He said: “You can’t come up with a road pricing scheme on the hoof. You have got to work out how it is going to work and it needs to be investigated properly.

“However, in principle, the Greens would be prepared to support it as a way of tackling traffic problems in the city centre.”

Consultation on the council’s blueprint document ends today and council officers will now draw up a draft document incorporating ideas from the consultation.