Latest news with #YorkCentral
The Guardian
14-05-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Are York's developers aiming high enough with UK's largest regeneration project?
On an area the size of 63 football pitches next to York's Victorian railway station, work is under way on the UK's biggest city centre regeneration scheme, which will expand the area by a third. The £2.5bn project, called York Central, aims to transform a vast 45-hectare (111-acre) site – once a major railway manufacturing hub with iron foundries, signalling workshops and wagon stables, now mostly a drab car park – into housing and offices. In the works are 3,000 homes beside a large park, a 200-bed hotel, a hub for business start-ups with a focus on rail, agricultural and media tech and biotechnology, and an expansion of the National Railway Museum. The scheme promises to create an estimated 6,500 new jobs, including 1,500 during construction. It also includes a major new building for a government ministry. The tenant has yet to be confirmed, but the Guardian understands it will be the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), and an official announcement is expected in summer. York is one of Defra's four main hubs, alongside Bristol, London and Newcastle, and 854 civil servants will move from the current office on the other side of town into the new six-storey, 195,000 sq ft government building, which can house up to 2,600. The state-of-the-art structure, which will have solar panels, air source heat pumps and a green roof, is due to be completed by 2028. York Central forms part of the government's plan for change that promises growth for every region, and its industrial strategy that names digital and technologies, and life sciences as two key sectors. It 'will see a ripple effect for the local economy', Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister and housing secretary, said when she visited in February, adding: 'What we're really clear on as government, growth has to be across the whole of the UK.' Stephen Hind, Network Rail's head of business development for the eastern UK, says one of York's biggest problems is an outflow of expertise from the city. 'There's not necessarily the space for those companies to grow.' After previous failed attempts to remodel the site several decades ago, the landowners National Rail and Homes England have teamed up with UK developers McLaren Property and Arlington Real Estate to get the new master plan off the ground. They are backed by £150m of public money, most of it from the government agency Homes England, with £30m from City of York council. The project, bigger than similar regeneration schemes in the capital at King's Cross, Battersea power station and British Land's £5.6bn Canada Water in east London, is part of York's 10-year growth plan, and should be completed about 2038. However, local campaigners worry that the opportunity to do something different and build a 'utopia' with walkable neighbourhoods in the spirit of England's garden cities could be squandered. 'The opportunity this presents to York is huge. It's very rare to be able to do things more or less from scratch,' says Jane Hustwit from York Central Co-Owned, which campaigns for a community-led mixed-use neighbourhood. 'So if we repeat in York an off-the-shelf city development, making all the same mistakes again, it would just be heartbreaking.' At the heart of York Central is the expanded railway museum with a big new square in front as the 'cultural gateway' to the area. Rayner has confirmed a £15m injection into the institution from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government – without which the near-£100m museum revamp would have been in danger. The rest will come from corporate partners, trusts and individual donors, with funding going towards a new circular central hall with a cafe connecting the museum's two existing buildings – the North Eastern Railway's 1873 goods office, which was used as a freight depot until the early 1970s and now exhibits royal carriages but is closed for refurbishment, and the Victorian engine shed. The latter houses the museum's collection of locomotives such the 737 featured in the movie Chariots of Fire, the Flying Scotsman, and the only Japanese bullet train found outside Japan. The York Central scheme includes a new western entrance to the railway station and two new bridges over the East Coast line, while car parking will move to a multistorey car park on the other side of the station closer to the historical centre. Tom Gilman, head of regeneration at McLaren, wants to avoid creating an 'oasis of privilege' and insists the new neighbourhood will be 'car light'. However, campaigners have voiced concerns over the decision to close a section of Leeman Road to allow for the construction of Museum Square and the museum's central hall, arguing this will cut a traditional working-class area off from the city centre. Residents will be forced to take a long route round when foot access through this space is limited during museum closing hours. 'Symbolically, it cuts that community off,' says Phil Bixby, a local architect and treasurer of York Environment Forum. 'There's a lot of feeling of ownership of the history, heritage of this place there, there are people whose families worked in the railways for generations.' The museum insists that the local community will not be cut off, pointing to new alternative routes under construction. The campaigners hope that the developers will listen to them. 'The pandemic taught us a lot about what good neighbourhoods look like,' says Bixby. Construction on the first lot of 1,000 homes is expected to start next year and people are due to move in from 2028. All homes are to be built to Passivhaus standards for energy and comfort, with heat pumps planned and potentially a deep geothermal system to provide heating and hot water. There will be a mix of one and two-bedroom flats, about 60% of the total, as well as three- and four-bedroom houses. At least a fifth of the homes will be affordable but the developers say they are aiming for 40%. Of the affordable homes, the majority (80%) are slated to be social rent, with the remainder made up of discounted market rent and shared ownership, Gilman says. David Skaith, the mayor of York, hopes the new homes could stem the tide of university graduates and other young people leaving the city because of high rents and house prices. Tenants who rent privately in the city pay an average of £1,117 a month, up by 2.6% in March from a year earlier, according to the Office for National Statistics. In January, rents were still 5.9% higher year on year. The average house price in York dipped by 1.6% to £299,000 in February, while across Yorkshire and The Humber, values were up by 7.5%. 'To have such a large-scale site in a small historical city like York is quite unusual and much needed in terms of investment and housing,' Skaith says, adding that it would be transformative for the wider region, which needs better transport links from east to west, such as more frequent train services between York and Scarborough. James Farrar, chief executive of York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority, agrees, saying 'the worst deprivation is on the coast'. He says homes being rented out on Airbnb or other holiday home sites has worsened the problem: 'Housing affordability is an enormous challenge across York and North Yorkshire,.' Andy Shrimpton, founder of the Cycle Heaven bike shop in York, wants the developers to think big with their plans for the site, arguing that a failure to aim high could lead to a generic 'estate devoid of any interest, amenity, community or joy'. He adds: 'We've done this long enough to know what works best in cities – dense neighbourhoods where we allow for, and mix up, all of life's activities – work, rest and play.'
BBC News
09-03-2025
- BBC News
Proposal to invest £1.7m in York riverside path upgrades
A total of £1.7m could be invested to improve a well-used riverside path in plans for the path, between Jubilee Terrace and Scarborough Bridge, include separate paths for cyclists and pedestrians, improved lighting and changes to the road layout on Jubilee of York Council's executive member for transport, Kate Ravilious, will be asked to agree to progress work to the detailed design and construction stage at a meeting on said the proposal was just one example of the council's efforts to make walking, wheeling and cycling easier and better across the city. Tuesday's meeting follows extensive consultation with the local community, the council said, which had seen over 1,000 said more than 85% supported the proposed design during the latest consultation."We are hugely grateful to the local community for their feedback as we progress this project," Ravilious added."Their input has helped shape the designs which are being put forward and we look forward to continuing to work with them as the project progresses." 'High-quality network' Funding for the project has been generated through an award of £1.1m from Active Travel England which is focused on improvements to the path with additional funding provided across both the council and the York Central scheme would also include work to raise the path, a move which could significantly reduce the number of days the route is inaccessible each year due to Active Travel Commissioner, Chris Boardman, said: "It's fantastic to see York beginning to deliver a high-quality network to enable more people to walk, wheel and cycle."By gearing up our streets for active travel and making sure routes are safe and accessible, we're making sure that everyone has an opportunity to choose different ways of getting out and about."In recent months the council has been carrying out riverside embankment surveys to check their long-term stability. Following a review of this area, the executive member will also be asked to agree to start work to explore a separately resourced and funded project to identify the need for any remedial works to the embankments. Listen to highlights from North Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.
