PARKS officials in York have drawn up an action plan to improve the city’s open spaces.

City of York Council’s leisure and culture box, Coun Nigel Ayre, is next week set to approve a raft of proposals aimed at regenerating parks, improving play areas, plugging the shortfall in sports pitches and increasing the number of allotments.

The wide-ranging proposals, under the banner Improving York’s Green Spaces, include: •Drawing up a development plan for St George’s Field park to give “more colour and vitality” to the site •Working with the Wild Flowering of York Project to bring more wild flowers to council land •Looking for new sites where allotments could be planted and working with parish councils to improve the quality of plots and reduce waiting lists •Restoring former playing fields back to a playable condition, such as at Melrosegate.

Officials also want to draw up development plans for North Street Gardens, which was previously earmarked as a possible site for a big wheel, and Monk Bridge Gardens, off Huntington Road.

Dave Meigh, the council’s head of parks and open spaces, said 60 per cent of York residents felt that the number of parks in the city was “about right”, but said there was some unhappiness. He said that while most people felt quality had improved in recent years, there was still much that could be done.

Some 22 play parks around the city are being redeveloped under the Government’s Playbuilder scheme and various other sites are being improved. Park Grove School is enhancing its outdoor park and a new outdoor-climbing facility, the Rawcliffe Boulder Project, is expected to be up and running by the spring.

Mr Meigh said: “The boulder is to be situated in Rawcliffe Country Park and has been designed to ensure that children of all ages and abilities will have the opportunity to experience the challenge of climbing.”

The various proposals will be considered by Coun Ayre at Guildhall next Tuesday.