IT seems that plans to build a riverside walkway behind Coney Street will not be affected by the city council’s failure to attract levelling up funding.

Developer the Helmsley Group says its plans to regenerate Coney Street and build a riverside walkway behind are not reliant on government funding - and that the scheme is still on course. Welcome news for all those who long to see York’s riverfront properly opened up.

It is often said that York turns its back on its river.

That is not entirely true. For many years, the River Ouse was a busy trade route, and the riverfront in the city centre was packed with barges, wharves and cranes.

For purely leisure users, the riverfront has also long been accessible at South Esplanade and, away from the city centre, at Tower Gardens, New Walk and Museum Gardens.

Since 2000, there has even been a very pleasant walkway behind City Screen, where you can lean on the railings and watch the pleasure boats go by. There is also a walkway on the opposite side of the River Ouse beside the Park Inn.

What we haven’t had, of course - and what so many people have long pushed for - is a walkway running along the river behind the lower end of Coney Street. That is what the Helmsley Group’s Coney Street Riverside development will hopefully one day deliver.

Here, we bring you a selection of old photos both from the Press’ own archive, and from Explore York, showing the York riverfront in times past. They include some showing the City Screen development in 1999, which led to the opening of a walkway beside the river at that end of the city centre. Enjoy.

Last week, we ran a series of photographs about the dredging barge Reklaw. We asked readers if they knew what had happened to it after its dredging days ended in the late 1990s, and after a brief period in which it was used to provide boat trips for people with disabilities.

Reader Steve Baldwin has been in touch with at least a partial answer. “The last time I saw it, it was in a boat repair yard in Knottingley about three years ago,” he said. “It was being converted into a houseboat.”

Thanks, Steve. any more updates, anyone?