York developments to look out for as city undergoes major transformation

In summer, a new eight-year tourism strategy for York was officially adopted by City of York Council to explore new approaches to create value beyond visitor volume following the pandemic. It focuses on five key priorities of a regenerative visitor economy: Green York, Culture York, Residents and Localhood and Skills and Recruitment.

Despite the millions of annual visitors, the shopping and leisure core of the city centre has seen some noticeable voids. It is hoped that developer Helmsley Group’s Coney Street Riverside development plans can revitalise that area.

The local authority has given its backing to the Coney Street Masterplan, subject to it not being called in by the secretary of state.

It will see the creation of 250,000 sq ft of mixed-use retail, leisure, commercial and residential space. A riverside walkway will be established alongside green and accessible public realm, both on the waterfront and through the creation and improvement of historic lanes and passageways between Coney Street and the River Ouse. It will also see underutilised upper floors of retail units brought back into use.

Independent analysis from chartered surveyors Aspinall Verdi and economic development consultants Kada Research, said the plan would deliver £175m in economic benefits to York over the next 15 years.

Max Reeves, development director at Helmsley Group, inset, says: “It has been a long journey to get to this point, but we are now optimistic that we will be given the green light to move forward with this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

By far the largest development in the city though is York Central, the 45 hectare mixed-use scheme being brought forward by a joint venture between developers McLaren Property and Arlington Real Estate.

It will feature 2,500 homes (20 per cent of which will be affordable) and up to one million sq ft of office, retail and hospitality space, along with improvements to York Railway Station and an enhanced National Railway Museum.

It has been estimated that York Central has the potential to generate up to 6,500 jobs and will help to grow York’s future economy by 20 per cent by adding £1bn GVA to the city.

Sarah Czarnecki, president of the York and North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce, says: “York Central is taking a long time, but I think it’s finally starting to bear fruit. Imagine getting off at the station and you’ve got ‘old’ York, your tourism, bars and restaurants and then ‘new’ York, which has a central business district. That’s exciting and will make York look and feel more like a commercial city and I don’t think it has ever been perceived like that.”

Sarah says that housing in the city is expensive and could lie behind another problem: “One of the issues we’ve got is getting students to stay once they have studied. Take the creative industry here, it is absolutely off the charts [successful]. But we need the students to stay here.”

Developer Latimer has transformed the former Rowntree’s factory building on Haxby Road into 279 apartments called The Cocoa Works, with 30 per cent of the homes available on affordable tenures. The next stage of the £83m project is to build 100 apartments and 200 two and three-bedroom houses at its Cocoa Gardens development at the rear of the factory building.

Group development director Richard Cook says: “From a sustainability view The Cocoa Works was an old building that had stood empty for 20 years and we transformed that into a thriving community. We’ll build close to 600 homes by the time we have finished which is a community of probably more than 1,200 people.

“It has everything from social rent to shared ownership to private sale. Shared ownership is available to key workers and people who basically can’t get onto the housing ladder. We’re also selling private sale on The Cocoa Works too because York is a city that also wants to grow its base of highly paid employment, so you have to do quality family housing.

“For York, 600 homes on a brownfield site is transformational. It is struggling for brownfield and that’s why they need to ultimately release the green belt because the only way you make thriving places is by having people live there, and affordably too. But we’re only delivering 600 homes. York needs about 1,500 a year and it’s really important that they aren’t all flats. The danger at York Central is that it could become very dense and have lots of apartments.

“Unless York starts releasing its grey/green belt they’re going to have to start building communities like Cattal at Green Hammerton, which we are involved in, or Elvington, south of York.

“I’m a big supporter of these garden communities as long as they carry sustainability credentials, which is proper public transport. Cattal has a railway station and while it’s not in York’s local authority, I think it will have more people living there from York and working in York.”