CITY planners failed York last night. Their timidity in the face of voracious developers bodes ill for our future.

If councillors cannot find it within themselves to fight for Burton Croft, when will they make a stand?

This piece of York history, home to one of their most illustrious predecessors, John Bowes Morrell, is to be wiped from the face of the city.

And for what?

To provide space for another huddle of modern flats, most likely priced far beyond local residents' reach.

So much of the character of York is being lost in this way.

Our most glorious assets, the Minster, the Bars, are safe. But move off the tourist trail and into real York, residential York, and it is a different story.

Time after time dreary blocks of flats, entirely unsuitable for the historic suburb in which they are dropped, get waved through the planning process with little heed taken of passionate protests by the neighbours.

Some of this can be put down to our undemocratic planning laws. As architect Matthew Laverack points out, when councillors occasionally reject plans against their officers' advice, the decision can come back to bite them at appeal.

Whitehall's prescriptive rules take far too little account of local feeling.

But councillors must take the blame for a lack of strategic vision. The Local Plan will not be finished for years. Calls for an environmental capacity study were thrown out.

Even the popular idea of a "local list" of buildings York people want to preserve has received only lukewarm support.

This prevarication has cost York Burton Croft, and that result sends out a chilling message to developers: almost everything is up for grabs.

Updated: 12:00 Friday, August 13, 2004