DEVELOPERS have submitted revised plans for the £100 million rejuvenation of the rundown Hungate area of York.

Hungate (York) Regeneration Ltd, which wants to build 720 homes and offices on the ten-acre site between Stonebow and the River Foss, has reduced the proposed scale and size of buildings fronting on to Stonebow.

It says it has also changed the design of the proposed office block in a bid to ensure it fits better architecturally into the rest of the scheme.

It has created a new pedestrian street, which will lead from Navigation Road all the way through to Peasholme Green, including a new pedestrian bridge over the River Foss.

The developers say the changes have been made after taking on board the views of planning officers, English Heritage, the Commission for Architecture in the Built Environment, and other statutory consultees and local people.

The submission of a revised outline application to City of York Council comes more than two years after the original scheme was unveiled.

Those proposals came under fire in some quarters, with York Civic Trust chief Darrell Buttery claiming that the flats resembled the towering "Manhattan waterfront" in New York.

Phil Darcy, of the developers, said there had been an overwhelmingly positive response from the public, with 81 per cent of the almost 2,000 people who attended an exhibition on the plans saying they wanted the scheme to go ahead.

"There were, however, some concerns raised about storey heights and massing of buildings on Stonebow and the design of the office block. We have listened to the comments and amended the plans accordingly."

The developers say that that lower storey heights in the Peasholme Green area have been respected, with the facing buildings reduced to three and four storeys. The new office building to the rear of the Grade II Listed Black Swan pub would be only three storeys, rising to six storeys within the development.

But several "gateway" buildings up to seven storeys high remain in the revised scheme.

The submission of the scheme comes only weeks after the council published a revised draft planning brief for the Hungate site.

York Open Planning Forum will discuss the Hungate draft planning brief at 7.30pm on Thursday, at Central Methodist Church, St Saviourgate.

Updated: 10:22 Tuesday, January 18, 2005