Grey and ugly. That's the damning verdict on a number of new buildings in York. Now, councillors are

NAMING and shaming is usually used to crack down on anti-social yobs who terrorise their neighbourhoods.

But now Huntington Parish Councillors have suggested an interesting variation on the theme, which they think could tame architects who blight a district with ugly buildings.

They say large plaques should be put up on the sides of buildings to name the architects responsible for the design.

Parish chairman Peter Vaughan claims the area, particularly Monks Cross, has had a poor track record in recent years, with new retail and commercial properties varying from the bland to the downright ugly.

"Look at our own Berlin Wall at the back of the shopping centre," he said. "Look at the ugly office block on the corner of Monks Cross Drive." He was also critical of the design of new homes built in the old village of Huntington, a conservation area.

He said tens of millions of pounds was to be spent on new employment sites at Monks Cross, major improvements to Huntington School and hundreds of houses and flats, and planners needed to raise standards.

"We call on developers, city councillors and planners to ensure that some of the money is invested in good design, both internal and external," he said. "The people of Huntington will, for many years, have to live with these new buildings."

"Locally and city-wide, we want to take pride in the architecture of buildings that will last for 50 years or more."

He said public design competitions would help avoid a repeat of past mistakes, adding: "It's not just a city-centre problem: for every Stonebow, there's a Monks Cross Wall. The whole of York deserves new buildings to match its past. Huntington, Heslington, Hungate - all are architectural opportunities to seize for the future."

His commens come as residents of Wigginton continue to be deeply concerned about a large block of flats being planned in The Village.

Villagers claim the flats, which would replace two semis and three terraced homes, are totally out of character for a residential street in a village, although this has been strongly denied by developers McCarthy & Stone. Demands for better building designs in York have met with a guarded response from Mike Slater, City of York Council's assistant director for planning and sustainable development, who warned about the need to balance the look of a building with the costs of development.

He said design issues were very important, as was stated in the draft Local Plan, and the authority did strive for high-quality design solutions as an "appropriate response to different problems in a range of different locations."

He said: "As part of this, guidelines in the plan encourage good solutions which respect or enhance different local environments.

"However, subjective issues will often be the subject of different opinions within the planning process.

"We would all like to see interesting, innovative buildings which fit in with the historic city. However, architecture is very subjective and, as a planning authority, we are limited in exactly how prescriptive we can be in terms of design, particularly outside conservation areas and where not having an impact on listed buildings."

He said the authority had been speaking to Huntington Parish Council and other parishes to improve quality through their Village Design Statements, and had asked them to provide the council with some ideas about what sort of design they would like to see in their area.

Meanwhile, Katherine Hague, centre manager at Monks Cross shopping park, said the current centre's management and retailers were not responsible for the design which, she pointed out, had been approved by Ryedale District Council planners.

John Reeves, of the Helmsley Group, which was responsible for the Norwich Union office building on the corner of Monks Cross Drive, commented simply: "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

Updated: 10:10 Monday, March 07, 2005