Giant wheel rolls back to historic city

Plans were unveiled yesterday to bring York's answer to the London Eye to the Museum Gardens creating as many as 30 jobs.

It is hoped that the new attraction could be in place by Easter next year after a wheel at the National Railway Museum (NRM) in York was removed in November 2008 over a lack of business.

A share of the profits will be used by the York Museums Trust to develop the city's art gallery.

Great City Attractions, the company behind the NRM attraction as well as the new proposals, still needs to secure planning permission. But the new 200ft wheel has been earmarked for a site behind St Mary's Abbey walls at the corner of Marygate and Bootham.

A company spokesman said: "At a time when cities are competing intensely to improve their offer to visitors and are seeking ways to mitigate the effects of the global recession, hosting a giant temporary observation wheel is the perfect way to give York a visible edge, as well as providing the ideal vantage point for tourists to see all the other attractions on offer in the city."

If planning permission is granted, the wheel will have 21 capsules and the museums trust is planning to remove derelict buildings and landscape the area to make way for the structure.