STEPHEN LEWIS joins architect John Thompson for a closer look at the site of York's proposed new £100m Hungate development

WELCOME to St John's Square! says John Thompson, gesturing about with an expansive wave of his hand.

It has to be said that it is not much to look at: a scruffy, semi-derelict car park with 'no parking' signs chained across the entrance. Beyond the wire fence at the other side stretches a wasteland of recently-cleared ground.

Here, until recently, stood the run-down engineering and electricity works, warehouses and cooling towers of York's 'forgotten' industrial quarter of Hungate - that wedge of land sandwiched between Stonebow and the River Foss, with the Ministry of Agriculture building at one corner.

Now, most of the post-war industrial buildings that made it such a depressing area have been cleared away, leaving a vast empty space littered with rubble and bits of old metal.

In John's imagination, however, this is already a bustling city-centre square - "the first public square to be created in York since... you tell me," he says excitedly - which will sit at the heart of a thriving new 21st century quarter combining shops, cafs, restaurants and riverside piazzas with more than 700 new homes, mostly flats.

This post-industrial wasteland would be transformed under the outline planning application submitted to City of York Council by Hungate (York) Regeneration Ltd. The joint venture is headed by Crosby Homes with backing from Evans Property Group and Land Securities, the firm behind Coppergate II.

Leading off St John's Square will be a number of new streets with names such as Pound Lane, Pond Garth and Black Horse Lane, running between city-centre style blocks with shops, restaurants and cafes on the lower floors and flats above.

On the south of St John's Square will be what John, the London-based architect who designed the scheme, describes as its "town hall". "Every neighbourhood has to have a focal building," he explains, as we crunch across the acres of rubble and puddles in the direction of the River Foss, beside which the building will stand. "This will be quite a modern building with a balconied atrium inside."

The other side of the building will look on to a riverside piazza known as Friar's Quay on the banks of the Foss. John envisages "high quality restaurants" on the piazza, and plenty of space for people to congregate.

From there he walks me along a still imaginary riverside path towards the Foss Islands Nature Reserve. On the left, he says, gesturing, will be a "creative media centre" overlooking the river, a place where different digital and IT-based companies can be housed together.

We walk eastwards across the middle of the desolate site. Off to our left, on the northern edge of the site, is what John says will be the most important public archaeological investigation in York since Jorvik. Archaeologists have already found evidence of Roman docks and £2-3million will be spent excavating that part of Hungate before it is developed.

As well as the Roman remains, there could be Viking and Anglian finds - and possibly even the lost church of St John in the Marsh, after which the new St John's Square is named.

We continue along what, if the scheme gets the go-ahead, will one day be a new street named Pond Garth. It leads to what will be a complex of flats looking out over the Foss Islands Nature Reserve, bordered by its distinctive row of poplars. The nature reserve itself will have money ploughed in to improve it, John says, and there will be a footpath running all around.

We turn with our backs to the reserve and look up at the imaginary blocks of flats. There will be a seven storey tower at either end, John says, pointing.

Ah, now there's the rub. The plans submitted to the city council are outline only - so there is as yet precious little detail. In the architect's drawings, the new buildings look satisfyingly solid, their arrangement appropriately higgledy-piggledy for a city such as York, and John is proud of the fact the new squares and streets will be largely pedestrian only.

The new Hungate quarter, he says, will be a massive asset to the city - a city centre quarter where people can live, work, dine out and do all the things associated with city living. It will also be a marvellous place for a stroll, he says.

But the sheer density of the development has caused alarm in some quarters, in particular the height of some of the proposed buildings.

Nobody disputes that Hungate needs development, says Professor Sir Ron Cooke, the former vice-chancellor of York University. But seven storeys is too high in a city that has been historically low-level.

Aside from the Norwich Union building, almost every high post-war building that has gone up in York has been a disaster, he points out. Stonebow and the Ryedale building spring to mind.

"The characteristic York streetscape in the inner city is four stories," he says. "That's the norm. The question has to be what's the justification for going higher? It will be a huge mass of development in that area."

John Thompson insists that is not the case. Only a few of the buildings will reach seven stories, he points out. The rest will range in height from three stories up to seven. And at no point will any of the buildings be higher than the GPO tower on Garden Place, Peaseholme House or the ridge (not tower) of Rowntree Wharf.

People think it is going to be like Manhattan, he says. It is not. He gestures out over the empty site to the cityscape of York, dominated by the Minster.

Hungate is in a dip, he says. And if you stretched a piece of string from the top of Peaseholme House to the ridge of Rowntree Wharf, none of the new developments in Hungate would be higher than that.

And as to worries that the development could overshadow the Minster: "If you think that Peaseholme House is ruining the Minster, then..." he lets the phrase taper off with another gesture.

What Ron Cooke wants to avoid is another costly and controversial planning dispute culminating in an appeal, as happened at Coppergate. He believes the developers must take account of York people's concerns over height and modify the plans accordingly - and he hopes that can be done in a spirit of co-operation.

John Thompson is simply keen for the people of York to see details of the scheme for themselves before making up their minds. Which is why the Hungate proposals will go on full public display on the site itself from January 8 to 21.

A scale model of the scheme, along with extensive plans and drawings, will be on view at an exhibition in the former bed warehouse in Garden Place every day between 10am to 4pm, and visitors may even be able to be escorted around the site itself to get an idea of the scale.

Once that's over the hard bargaining may really begin.

Updated: 11:20 Thursday, January 02, 2003