The Coppergate Riverside scheme has been thrown out and now the debate resumes on how to improve the Eye Of York. ALISON SINCLAIR offers her proposal for a Castle Precinct.

THE Castle car park could be restored as a historic castle precinct and give us a public green space. The car park area should be grassed over so it becomes integrated with the whole space in front of the Castle Museum and surrounding Clifford's Tower. There are some places which could be paved with York stone, such as a "sitting out" place in front of the Caf Andros.

If this stretched out into the grassy area it would provide a transitional link between the built-up character of Castlegate and the open feeling of the Castle Precinct.

Perhaps the riverside between the Female Prison and Fenwicks - behind the existing length of old prison wall - should be paved as well, for sitting, picnics or as a place for exhibitions, performances and a funfair.

This would make use of some of the archaeology on the site and it would be possible to do the same thing with remains elsewhere.

So that the Tower Street edge is well defined, for instance, the footings of the Victorian prison walls which survive below ground could be excavated and exposed. So could the remains of the walls of the radiating cell blocks of the prison which lie beneath the car park.

A similar treatment has been given to the remains of St Mary's Abbey in Museum Gardens and gives an idea of the extent of different parts of the abbey. To build on the archaeology of the old castle precinct we could create a pedestrian/cycle track across the site to demarcate the line of the wall which, for some period of their existence, separated Clifford's Tower from the castle bailey at the southern end of the site.

At the Piccadilly end of the cycle path there could be a light bridge positioned so the enclosed yard at the northern end of the Female Prison is left intact.

The reason for this is so that the present little yard could be made into a quiet memorial or garden of remembrance.

Beneath the present yard, archaeologists have found the remains of two burial grounds, the earlier from the Saxon period and the later from the time of the female prison when executions took place here.

A quiet garden would seem an appropriate way to recognise this connection, and the garden could also be dedicated to commemorate the massacre of Jewish people at Clifford's Tower in 1190. The creation of a garden in this position would merge with the reinstatement of a green edge at this side of the site, running from the natural area at the back of the Female Prison and joining up with the planted space beside Fenwicks. The gap in this corridor now occupied by the lower courses of the old prison riverside wall could be filled by supplementing the existing trees and improving the grass verge.

It is likely that not much other planting would be possible on the car park because Tarmac now covers the basement of the 1930s civic office building which was to have stood on this spot until the Second World War put paid to the scheme. It may be better for the space to remain open and paved so the riverbed would not be too heavily shaded.

A wide open space here, around the base of Clifford's Tower, would create an attractive place where a River Foss festival could be held. Commercial events could also be held here such as those in Museum Gardens.

It would be a wonderful location for the food and drink festival, for instance. Such a space would be an added amenity for English Heritage, who care for Clifford's Tower, and the new museums and gallery trust, which manages the Castle Museum.

They would then a valuable facility in which, individually or together, they could organise all manner of events, re-enactments, performances and such.

The Civil War event held earlier this year behind the museum buildings beside Castle Mills bridge would have been located more appropriately at the base of Clifford's Tower. The terrace in front of the female prison cries out for performances such as drama, music, exhibitions or poetry readings.

The Eye Of York could be put to good use for the recreation of 18th and 19th century parliamentary hustings at which local candidates such as William Wilberforce and Lord Rockingham - a future Prime Minister - were elected to Parliament.

But most of all, the creation of this space would be the restoration of a place of local and national importance as significant in the secular history of our country as the Minster is in church history. It would enable once again the recreation of the precinct in which the four important buildings of York Castle - Clifford's Tower, the Court building, the Debtors Prison and the Female Prison - would be reunited in their proper setting.

This is a great chance to carry out an exemplary piece of restoration. We ought not to miss it.

Updated: 10:45 Wednesday, September 17, 2003