A NEW flats development near Micklegate should help meet massive demand for affordable housing in York city centre.

Yorkshire Housing wants to build a block of 19 new flats on land off Trinity Lane and convert an existing building in Micklegate into five flats.

The development would mean the change of use of shops and offices at 63, 65 and 67 Micklegate - grade two listed buildings - to flats.

City of York Council planners were due to be urged this evening to approve the proposals.

A report from officers says the Bishophill area has one of the highest demands for affordable housing, with hundreds of new homes needed.

But the area has seen virtually no affordable housing development since 1996.

The council's community services department says it is encouraged by the provision of rented accommodation, particularly on a site that would normally have been lost to the private market.

However, the council has received some objections to the scheme from local residents and the Bishophill Neighbourhood Forum.

The forum said it had no objection in principle to new residential accommodation, but it felt the elevation of the proposed new building facing Jacob's Well in Trinity Lane was "appalling, and one of the most insensitive designs we have ever seen".

It added: "The overall design is too high, giving rise to an architectural abomination."

Residents claimed Trinity Lane would be changed from a quiet backwater into an intensive development, and the materials chosen to face on to the lane were a "tasteless hotchpotch of brick, timber and white cement render".

The report says the site is in an area of archaeological importance, which has produced significant Roman, Anglo-Scandinavian and mediaeval deposits.

"An archaeological evaluation of the site has been undertaken by Field Archaeology Specialists. This has demonstrated that there are important archaeological deposits preserved on this site."

Officers say an archaeological watching brief on all groundworks for the development would be necessary.

"The foundations of the structure should also be designed so that they do not disturb more than five per cent of the archaeological deposits preserved under the proposed extension," they add.

Updated: 11:47 Thursday, August 09, 2001