A NEW Park&Ride development on the edge of York is set to get the go-ahead – complete with a wind turbine.

Plans to create 1,250 parking spaces at Dringhouses will be analysed by planers next week with the team behind the scheme saying they plan to make the facility an “iconic” gateway to York.

The proposal to relocate them Askham Bar Park&Ride site – which has space for 540 cars – has been put forward despite the patch of land it is earmarked for partially lying within York’s Green Belt.

In a report which will go before City of York Council’s planning committee next week, officers have singled out the potential development as being a trigger for improving traffic flows around York.

The application is to create the Park&Ride site at Sim Hills, off Tadcaster Road, into a space for 1,250 vehicles, a “sustainable” terminal building, a wind turbine and a stretch of open land, replacing an existing landfill site.

In the proposal, council officers have said: “The Park&Ride facility at Askham Bar has, over a long period, formed a significant element in the city’s strategy to minimise car trips into the city centre for a range of sustainability reasons.

“The Park&Ride facility at Askham Bar has been in existence since 1990 and has been a key element of the traffic management for the city as a whole. Considerable pressure has, however, been experienced in relation to site capacity in recent times and the site as a whole is in need of refurbishment.”

The report also says that seven other sites for the potential relocation of the Askham Bar Park&Ride facility were considered.

But it added; “The application site was identified as the most appropriate in sustainability terms and the least harmful in terms of its impact upon the open character of the Green Belt.”

The council has said building a bridge over the neighbouring railway line and Askham Bog should be ruled out as it would have a “detrimental” impact on the surrounding landscape.

But officers have smiled on the design of the terminal building, which they say “has been designed to be iconic as a reception point for those arriving at the site and an introduction to the city.”