EVERY conservationist is in danger of being labelled reactionary, a stick-in-the-mud, backward-looking. That is certainly a risk run by York Civic Trust's leaders.

When they believe a new development diminishes this city, they do not mince their words. Coppergate II was branded "civic vandalism" by the trust; the Westgate flats were condemned for seeming to dwarf the Minster; and it also slammed the "alien" buildings planned for Hungate.

The pitfall of such straight talking is obvious. If the public were to perceive the trust as a band of irredeemably negative blimps clinging to York's past at the expense of its future, its role in influencing contemporary design would be undermined.

That is why we welcome the Civic Trust Awards today. They make two irredeemably positive points. Firstly, that today's architects are capable of rising to the high standards set by their predecessors; and secondly that the trust delights in praising the new as well as the old.

We have no hesitation in endorsing their choices. The three winners are different in scale, design and purpose, yet they are linked by their modernity.

The most startling example is the Millennium Bridge. It looks like nothing else in York yet is already a well-loved landmark. This is a social, structural and artistic triumph.

Like the bridge, the Poplar Gardens flats were created in a factory and assembled on site. Those with unhappy memories of post-war pre-fabricated living will have been astounded and, we hope, delighted by the Yorkon structures, which could yet prove to be the big breakthrough in dealing with our housing crisis.

Meanwhile, the Early Music Centre, like another garlanded building, Borders in Davygate, is a marriage of ancient ecclesiastical and modern secular style. It is a union which undoubtedly works.

We congratulate the architects, engineers and builders who created these structures, and the civic trust for honouring them. It is heartening to know York's centuries-old tradition for buildings of quality and character continues.

Updated: 10:42 Friday, April 04, 2003