NOBODY who lives in York can have failed to notice the spread of new apartments in the city.

Every available scrap of empty land, every ageing riverfront warehouse or decent-sized building, seems to have been seized for development or conversion.

In many ways, this building boom is good. York cannot afford to turn into a stagnant museum city. It needs to grow and move forward. And with more and more people choosing to live alone, there is a desperate need for such housing.

But a balance must also be struck.

York's Green Party leader Andy D'Agorne warns today that as the rate at which new housing is being built in York continues to accelerate, the day is fast approaching when the city's streets will reach total gridlock.

Earlier this week, the outgoing director of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Lord Best, warned that alongside the new flats, York also needed more proper family homes with gardens.

There is, too, a desperate need for more affordable homes as house prices continue to rocket.

The people whose job it is to ensure that York achieves the right balance of housing and other development are the city planners.

Rather than looking at individual developments piecemeal, they need to work out an overall blueprint for the city's future.

Yes, we want York to move with the times, rather than being set in aspic. That means accepting and welcoming new growth and development.

But it is growth that must be properly planned, so that all that is best about this city is protected and it remains the great place to live that it has always been.