RESIDENTS of Walmgate have heard about plans for development in the area - including super-green affordable homes.

A ‘Chat and Chips’ event took place on Thursday, July 18 with residents invited to give feedback on the developments set to take place on the former Willow House site and improvement measures across South Walmgate.

City of York Council’s Housing Delivery Programme aims to create new affordable Passivhaus housing – something that it believed would help target the affordability challenges facing residents in the city and create quality housing for residents to enjoy.

RECOMMENDED READING:

According to council representative, the Passivhaus homes are designed and certified to standards which exceed current housing regulations and can cut heating bills through ‘super-insulation’ and recycling of heat generated in the home.

They will feature triple glazing, good quality insulation, and solar panels with aims for the development to be net zero.

This is one of a number of Passivhaus developments in the city - these include sites at Lowfield Green, Ordnance Lane, and Duncombe Square.

While the full development is planned to be 100 per cent affordable, 50 per cent of the housing will be social with a further 50 per cent of the property being shared ownership. The site will also keep up with social demand by offering mostly one to two bed properties.

The team stated that it hopes to submit its planning applications by 2025 with building hopefully set to begin in two years’ time from mid-2026 onward, should there be no delays.

Furthermore, improvements have been planned for the South Walmgate area with residents invited to give their say on what they would like to improve their environment.

With the area considered one of the most deprived districts in York (as of 2019), studies suggest that there is very little social infrastructure or meeting space in the area - something that the council hopes to remedy by creating better shared areas.

A City of York Council spokesperson said the public meeting was about getting feedback and showing residents the plans.

"There is no secured funding at the moment ready to support the delivery of the wider improvement projects, however our ambition is that any planning contributions for the site would go to improve the local area, in particular to improve the area near the shops, supporting social, economic, and ecological initiatives aimed at improving South Walmgate, making it a more resilient and healthy 21-century place where people of all ages live, work, meet up, learn, play out, visit and explore the history of and heritage of the neighbourhood."

There was also an exercise for residents to place stickers in target areas where they felt unsafe so that the council could look at opening them up. Stickers could also be placed in areas that residents liked and where new trees should be planted.

Doors have opened also on an event by York Archaeology that aims to show residents the history of their street.