A BIG expansion of a York business park is set to go ahead - provided it does not shunt plans to reopen a railway line into the buffers.

City of York Council will next week consider an application by the Monks Cross Partnership to extend the business park to the north of Monks Cross Drive by 10.5 hectares (about 25 acres).

The council's economic development officers say the scheme is of considerable importance in addressing the short-term need for, and shortage of, quality employment sites.

A report to next Thursday's meeting says that the applicant has demonstrated that "very special circumstances do apply in respect of the need to increase the supply of quality employment land to prevent a shortfall occurring over the next few years."

The report by development control officer Mick Britton says these special circumstances outweigh the normal presumption against inappropriate development in the green belt.

However, he recommends that a legal agreement should be reached to safeguard for three years a stretch of former railway land which runs across the site.

He says this would allow time for a feasibility study into the reopening of the disused rail route from York to Beverley.

Councillors were told that the Minsters Rail Campaign, which supports the reopening, had opposed the development unless such an agreement could be reached. The Countryside Agency had raised similar concerns.

One of the leading lights behind the railway campaign, Philip Taylor, said a study was being undertaken into the demand for, and initial feasibility of, such a railway route, which could prove a valuable line for commuters into Monks Cross and York.

The study findings were due to be reported back in the autumn to the campaign group, which was backed by a number of local authorities, including East Riding of Yorkshire, Hull City, North Yorkshire and City of York Councils.

Meanwhile, concerns over the impact of the development on Great Crested Newts, a protected species found in a number of ponds on the site, have been alleviated by the applicants, who say they can be effectively managed, with landscape corridors providing migration routes out of the site.

English Nature say it would be satisfied, provided a condition was imposed on the development to ensure a favourable habitat was maintained for the newts.

The report says a similar application for the site had been deferred in 2003 on the grounds that it was premature in terms of the City of York Local Plan.

An appeal against non-determination of that application was due to go to a public inquiry on July 28 - six days after next week's planning committee meeting.

Updated: 10:29 Thursday, July 15, 2004