Have your say on plans to improve Exhibition Square, Duncombe Place and Fossgate

WHAT should be done with the statue of William Etty in Exhibition Square? Where should new cycle parking in Blake Street and at the entrance to Duncombe Place go?

Should there be seats on new, wider pavements in Fossgate? And should York really be spending £3.3 million at all on revamping six areas of central York at a time of austerity?

These are some of the issues you might have views on as the consultation period on the latest phase of the Reinvigorate York programme draws towards a close.

City of York Council has set up a small exhibition in the foyer of its West Offices headquarters which give details of the proposals for Exhibition Square, Duncombe Place and Fossgate. There are also samples of some of the materials that could be used for resurfacing streets and open spaces.

You have until Friday, February 21, to make your views known by filling in forms in the foyer at West Offices or in libraries across the city.

Alternatively you can give feedback through an online survey (see below).

Dave Merrett, City of York Council’s cabinet member for transport and planning, says the authority is keen to hear people’s views.

A number of key decisions about the plans are yet to be made – including the kind of materials used for resurfacing roads and open spaces, and what to do about bus shelters in Exhibition Square, he says.

And what if people say they don’t think the schemes should go ahead at all?

“If there is a massive groundswell of opinion against we would think twice,” he said. “But from what we understand of the feedback so far, these proposals have generally been greeted very positively.”

On these pages, we look at the proposals for Exhibition Square, Duncombe Place and Fossgate in a little more detail.

• You can find out more at West Offices or by visiting york.gov.uk/reinvigorateyork.

• To give your views online, visit surveymonkey.com/s/ReinvigorateYork

Details of the proposals...

Exhibition Square

The brick turning area which fronts on to St Leonard’s Place will be paved with York stone, effectively extending the square right out to the road and creating a much wider open space that could be used for a range of events.

There will be a single lane at the edge of the square for buses to stop; but buses will no longer be allowed to turn here.

So where will buses coming from north of York be able to turn to make the return journey? They will be expected to go over Lendal Bridge to Station Rise, says Coun Merrett.

To suspicious minds, that might suggest the council has already decided to keep the traffic restrictions on Lendal Bridge in place, even though the six-month experiment isn’t yet quite over.

Not so, insists Coun Merrett. “We are not prejudicing the outcome of that experiment. It [buses crossing Lendal Bridge to turn at Station Rise] is not dependent on that, although clearly it would make it easier.”

Other improvements to Exhibition Square will include moving the taxi rank to the opposite side of the road from the square; relocating bus shelters and bus stops so the square is more open; and dealing with the fountain and the statue of William Etty.

Spray from the fountain is damaging the statue, Coun Merrett says. So the authority is keen to hear suggestions about whether the fountain should be moved, the statue moved, or both. It also wants suggestions for the kind of events that could be held in the square.

There are also proposals to create a gated entrance down the side of the art gallery to Museum Gardens behind, to tie in with the ongoing revamp of the art gallery by York Museums Trust.

• Total estimated cost of the Exhibition Square proposals: about £1 million.

• Timescale: Work to begin after the Tour de France and finish before the art gallery reopens in spring 2015
 

Duncombe Place

The aim is to change the appearance of the entrances to Duncombe Place and Blake Street, so that they look more pedestrian-friendly and it becomes clear that the main through route for traffic is Museum Street and St Leonard’s Place.

The area of road at the entrance to both Duncombe Place and Blake Street will therefore be raised slightly.

The pavement on the corner of Blake Street and Museum Street will be made much wider, narrowing the entrance to Blake Street and giving pedestrians an area from which to view the Minster. The pavement on St Leonard’s Place will also be widened.

There will also be new cycle parking, some possibly on the corner of Blake Street and Duncombe Place, and more perhaps near the Assembly Rooms.

The effect will be to make both Blake Street and Duncombe Place less ‘dominated’ by cars and other vehicles, without actually closing them off, says Coun Merrett.

“There should be a significant improvement for pedestrians.”

• Total estimated cost: about £875,000.

• Timescale: Work to begin after the Tour de France and finish by autumn

Fossgate

Pavements the length of Fossgate will be widened and some seating will be installed, to slow traffic and make the street more pedestrian-friendly.

The entrance to Fossgate from Pavement will also be altered, either by raising the level of the road there, or by keeping the existing road hump but widening the pavements at that point, and perhaps including seating.

The Reinvigorate York consultation states that “we propose to convert Fossgate to a daytime foot street”. There is a “reasonable level of support” from Fossgate traders and other businesses to look at a potential foot street extension, Coun Merrett says.

If that does go ahead, he says, “one suggestion that has emerged from stakeholder meetings involving a number of traders and businesses from the street is that the top half of the street could be a foot street but that the south half of the street could be used for servicing, with access from Merchantgate.”

• Estimated cost: £345,000

• Timescale: work to begin at the end of April and be finished before the Tour de France in July

Now is the time to invest, thanks to low interest rates, says Merrett...

CITY of York Council is getting value for money on the Reinvigorate York programme, insists the authority’s cabinet member for transport and planning Dave Merrett.

Some eyebrows were raised at the £490,000 cost of revamping King’s Square – particularly at a time of austerity. The three further phases of Reinvigorate York now being consulted on, meanwhile, will between them cost a further £2.2 million.

But that represents a good investment, Coun Merrett says. What the authority is paying is “comparable in price terms” to what anyone would have had to pay for such work, he says.

The King’s Square project is only half complete, he points out – so the full £490,000 has not yet been spent. Work will start on phase 2 in early March – and only when it is complete should it be judged.

The foundations for the repaved square have been made strong enough to resist the weight of delivery lorries, Coun Merrett says, and the work should last half a century or longer. He believes it will be value for money.

But at a time when the authority is being forced to make yet more cuts to its budget – with 240 jobs to go as the council tries to save £23 million over the next two years – can it really afford to be spending millions of pounds on schemes to prettify the city centre?

Yes, because the money comes from capital budgets, not revenue budgets, so doesn’t affect front-line council services, Coun Merrett says. It is a one-off investment using borrowed money designed to make York an even more attractive place to live and to visit.

As figures released recently revealed, tourism now pumps more than £600 million a year into the city economy. But there has been huge investment put into York’s regional rival cities, Coun Merrett says. If York is to continue to succeed as a tourism destination, money has to be invested in the city.

Now is the time to do it, he says, because interest rates are at an historic low – so it costs less to borrow.

The only cost to the city’s revenue budget of the Reinvigorate York schemes – in other words, the only money being spent on Reinvigorate York that could otherwise have been sent on front-line council services – will be the money spent on paying interest on loans.

A total of £3.3 million has been budgeted for Reinvigorate York. That will cover improvements to King’s Square, Exhibition Square, Duncombe Place and Fossgate, plus two further schemes yet to be detailed – improvements to Parliament Street (including the Piccadilly/ Coppergate junction) and to Micklegate.

Most of the money for these projects (about £3 million) will have to be borrowed.

Interest rates paid by the council on its borrowing are usually about 4.5 per cent. The cost of paying off the interest on the £3 million of loans taken out for all six Reinvigorate York schemes will ultimately be about £256,000 a year, the council says.

This money will come from the council’s revenue budget – and is money that could otherwise have been spent on front-line services such as libraries, elderly care and social services.

Compared to the council’s total annual revenue budget of £125 million, however, it is a small sum, says Coun Merrett.