Why it's 'back to the future' for Coney Street

If you look down Coney Street on a lunchtime or a Saturday, you will see a continuous stream of people moving between branches of well-known high street retail chains and a few independent shops.

Window displays catch people’s eyes, pulling travellers through doorways and into shops. Some – most often men - are discarded and wait on the margins of the street.

Some buildings have ground floors that are empty – offering little of interest for the passer by and breaking the rhythm of people. Buskers add their sounds – sometimes too loud. Conversations drift and people watch.

In the early morning, the street is filled with vans keeping the shops supplied. Commuters compete for space on their walk to work or an early morning trip to the Post Office. The noise of this street life adds another worry for people who are trying to sleep in the deep doorways that offer some form of protection.

When the shops close, releasing staff for the evening, the energy pendulum swings towards Lendal as restaurants and bars start to fill and the cinema draws people past the last surviving place of worship. The view changes and the river comes into focus as windows open and tables fill on the wooden deck above the water.

In the late evening as the bars close the street quietens for a few hours before the street is cleaned and deliveries start the cycle all over again.

Is that it? Is that all that Coney Street has to offer? Has life on Coney Street always been this way? How are we to know?

The hard landscaping of the footstreet offers no places to pause and take in your surroundings. The lively ground floor shop windows ensure that people do not look up to find out if anything is happening in the floors above.

There are some signs on the street that offer glimpses into past lives of the street. Effervescent inns – the Black Swan and The George – once offered daily direct connections to and from London, acting as business hubs, hotels, bars and restaurants.

The headquarters of York’s Suffragettes provided a base to organise their activities across the county.

The dramatic effects of air raids over York were felt most heavily - the impacts now both rebuilt and offered as a reminder. In the skies above the heroics of Yves Mahe saved the city from further destruction.

Look up, round the corner or down a snicket and buildings will appear that are rarely noticed - grand banking establishments, seats of civic life, places of worship, Chinese restaurants that once entertained into the early hours, curious carvings - the list is long and not all of them are what they seem.

There are many important facets of city life that have left few traces behind on the street. A medieval synagogue once stood as the centre of York’s Jewish community. Centuries later a Turkish bath further down the street provided revitalization and refreshment.

The printing works that for centuries produced newspapers, books and pamphlets have moved on and their crafts are being lost. The street-cryers and ballad-singers, the fanfares of formal processions and the music spilling out of saloons and workshops once added to the soundscape of the street.

As Coney Street evolves we can find golden threads to weave into the street’s future fabric by wandering back through its history and experiencing what went before.

The University of York and its partners - including City of York Council, York Bid, York Civic Trust, York Music Venue Network - will be exploring the history, creativity, and culture of the street through a new StreetLife Hub on Coney Street.

The Hub will provide opportunities and experiences for everyone to take part and learn new skills in some of these golden threads and help explore the opportunities for the redevelopment of Coney Street.

High Streets across the UK are changing under the same pressures that Coney Street is facing. Rather than importing a single one-size fits all solution that runs the risk of the making all high streets feel the same and suffer the same issues in the future it is surely better to seek out and develop those changing aspects of ‘Yorkness’ that have made Coney Street a thriving place for a 1000-years.

• Andrew Morrison is chief executive of York Civic Trust