A housing development in York which would ban car owners from taking up tenancies has been given the go-ahead by City of York councillors.

The development of 18 houses and two bungalows on land at the back of Bootham Engineers in Lawrence Street is to be run by York Housing Association.

The City of York Council would nominate tenants according to housing need, but only those who did not own cars at the time would be chosen to move in.

The developers aim to make the houses environmentally friendly, using the latest energy efficiency measures and architect Phil Bixby told councillors it would be a "pioneering" scheme.

The aim of the car ban would be to encourage tenants who shared the developer's environmental principles. But there would be nothing preventing tenants from buying a car once they had moved in and car parking spaces will be provided at each property.

At the meeting yesterday Coun Janet Hopton said this should be made clear and Coun Dave Merrett, chairman of the planning and transport committee, confirmed the council could not enforce any rule on non-car ownership after people had moved in. Coun Bernard Bell said he thought it was totally unfair to use the issue of car ownership as one of the criteria for selection, but Coun Ann Reid said that conditions were often attached to housing applications and it was only one part of a jigsaw of how applications were dealt with.

Coun Merrett said afterwards that the car-owning policy was also connected with the restricted access to the site.

The councillors decided to agree to an access from Bull Lane and also that the junction of Bull Lane and Lawrence Street should be widened. They also agreed that the tree at the junction be left in place and that another tree should be planted.

Councillors agreed that a proposed pedestrian and cycle bridge over Tang Hall Beck should be scrapped from the plans.

Local residents had objected to the bridge and Coun Merrett asked Mr Bixby, architect for the scheme, if the bridge was necessary. He said it was not essential.

Both Councillors Derek Smallwood and David Wilde objected to the bridge in that it was too heavy a structure for a shallow valley - Coun Wilde said it was a "bridge too far".

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.