THE York Central development will not create the number of jobs the city needs, a councillor has claimed.

Labour’s economy spokesman on City of York Council, Stuart Barnes, said his party's vision was for the site behind York railway station to deliver as many jobs as possible by ensuring the maximum level of commercial space on the site.

"Given Homes England’s remit to deliver homes, we’re now likely to see something nearer the bottom to mid range of the space used for job creation, and so risk up to 2,000 potential high value jobs for future generations," he said.

"With Homes England in the driving seat, it’s expected that a good proportion of this prime employment land will be given over to housing rather than space for well paid jobs."

His comments came as the York Central Partnership announced it had submitted a revised outline planning application for the re-development of the massive site.

The changes, aimed at allaying concerns raised during a public consultation on York Central proposals last year, include increasing the amount of office floor space from 46,000 square metres to 70,000 square metres. However, there might be a small reduction in space for other uses, such as retail and hotels.

A Homes England spokeswoman said:"City of York Council’s planning authority conducted a statutory consultation on Network Rail’s and Homes England’s planning application for York Central.

"Based on this we have revised our plans and increased the minimum amount of office floor space from 46,000 sq metres to 70,000 sq metres.

"The revision includes an increase in the amount of office floor space which will go some way to addressing the issues raised by Councillor Barnes.”