We WILL build affordable homes on York's Castle Mills site - council

Pete Kilbane, the deputy leader of City of York Council, admitted that planning permission for 106 apartments on the site on Piccadilly had ‘lapsed’.

But, speaking to The Press, he renewed Labour’s commitment to developing the site - and said every one of the homes ultimately built on the council-owned site would be ‘genuinely affordable’.

“York residents deserve to be able to afford to live in the middle of town,” Cllr Kilbane said.

Planning permission was originally granted for 106 flats at Castle Mills several years ago, as part of a much wider £32m ‘Castle Gateway’ scheme to transform the Eye of York and Piccadilly.

It was intended that income from the sale of the flats at Castle Mills would help to pay for other aspects of the Castle Gateway scheme - including a new public open space at the Eye of York, a foot and cycle bridge across the Foss, and regeneration of the Foss riverside.

An artist's impression of how the original plans for Castle Mills might have turned out. The planning permission has now lapsed - but the council says it is determined to build affordable homes on the site (Image: Planning documents)

But spiralling costs meant the project stalled – and in September last year, council bosses admitted that alternative ways of funding the Castle Gateway project would need to be sought.

But the authority remains determined to build much-needed affordable homes on the Castle Mills site.

Cllr Kilbane said the authority was working with a housing association partner with a view to putting together a fresh planning application for homes on the site – all of which would be affordable.

He said funding for the scheme would come from a combination of new government funds to develop brownfield sites; the Mayor of York and North Yorkshire’s brownfield fund; and from investment.

Cllr Pete Kilbane (Image: Supplied)

The authority was seeking to attract long-term investors with an interest in York to help bankroll the development, he said.

“They are out there. We are talking to them,” Cllr Kilbane said.

He said the density of housing on the site might be increased slightly to help make the development viable – though without compromising on standards.

“We need to make sure it stacks up financially, in the same way that we managed to do with Ordnance Lane (a low carbon, affordable housing development of 101 homes on council land at Ordnance Lane and Hospital Fields Road),” Cllr Kilbane said.

“But we need to make sure that people can afford to live there.”

Cllr Kilbane admitted the Castle Mills site would not be an easy one to develop – partly because of a large water pipe running right through the middle that cannot be built over.

“But we are going to go the extra mile to make this happen,” he said.

But Lib Dem opposition leader Cllr Nigel Ayre expressed scepticism.

Cllr Nigel Ayre (Image: Supplied)

“Labour inherited a Castle Mills scheme that should now be in construction with a plan that would have added almost £9m of benefit to the public purse,” he said.

“It seems unlikely now anything will happen to this site ahead of the next council elections, without a significant cost to the council.”