A CITY centre property owner is suggesting York's Coppergate Riverside row could be resolved - by building the new shops in Hungate instead.

The Evening Press revealed earlier this month how the Hungate area off Stonebow was set for office, leisure and housing redevelopment.

Developer Crosby Homes was inviting residents to become involved in formulating plans for the ten-acre site.

Now Northminster Properties Ltd, which owns part of the site in Piccadilly where new shops are planned under the Coppergate Riverside proposals, says the proposed retail development should be re-located to Hungate.

Spokesman Andrew Eccles said City of York Council had argued during the public inquiry that city centre retailing needed to expand through the provision of a new department store and modern shops.

"This may be open to some debate," he said. "But it is the difficulty of designing and siting the large retail development in close proximity to Clifford's Tower and other listed buildings which causes most of the controversy, the opposition of the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, and the potential damage to York's heritage and tourism.

"By contrast, the Hungate area is not constrained by important Listed Buildings in the same way.

"It is, if anything, slightly nearer to the city centre than the Coppergate site."

He said the relocation to Hungate would allow the area between Clifford's Tower and Piccadilly to be redeveloped in a "more sensitive, mixed-use,

organic fashion" with a vibrant open area.

He said: "There seems to be no logical reason for forcing the inappropriate shopping development into the sensitive

Coppergate site when the alternative site at Hungate will allow the citizens of York all the advantages of improved shopping, but at the same time the preservation of their heritage."

Mr Eccles claimed that Roy Templeman, the council's director of development services, had said at the inquiry that Hungate would be an alternative area to Coppergate for retail expansion, but the council had concerns about access.

Mr Eccles suggested such problems could be overcome, for example by creating new access into the area through a new bridge over the River Foss from Foss Islands Road.

But Mr Templeman told the Evening Press that Hungate was not as suitable as the Riverside site for retail development.

He claimed it was further away from the retail core of the city centre.

Shoppers would also have to cross a busy bus route in Stonebow to get to it.

There would also be only one access route into the site for shoppers from the rest of the city centre, whereas the Riverside site would be accessed from Piccadilly, via the Coppergate Centre and from around the tower and the Castle Museum.

Updated: 12:16 Friday, February 22, 2002