A CONSERVATION watchdog has savaged aspects of the proposed redevelopment of York's Barbican Centre.

York Civic Trust brands the scheme "huge and overpowering", and claims it has been conceived without understanding the importance of the site, especially its setting so close to the historic city walls.

It says the building designs are "very mediocre" and the materials foreign to York, collectively failing to reflect anything of the city's character.

The trust, which aims to preserve York's architectural and cultural heritage, was giving its official response to the planning application to City of York Council to build 240 apartments, a 135-bedroom hotel and new swimming pool.

It says the scale, density, layout and height of the proposed four and five-storey apartment block alongside Barbican Road is unrelated to the location. "Those aspects, coupled with the mediocre design and unsuitable materials, result in the building being unworthy of this sensitive site in York.

"The massing of the building would cut off important views of the City Walls and be altogether too overpowering."

It also raises strong concerns about the traffic generated by the development, which it says will have an enormous impact on the existing road network of the whole area, with several existing problem points in close proximity to the Barbican.

It says there should be no permission until a traffic impact study has been prepared and carefully examined.

The trust says the various uses proposed for the site are acceptable in principle, but it has serious reservations about the impact on the setting of the walls.

The Barbican developers responded today by saying that they had held lengthy and continuous consultation with English Heritage, and that the design approach did consider the visual impact upon the walls.

The residential and hotel buildings were set well away from the walls, and there were numerous examples of developments of similar or greater height in York much closer to them.

They claimed the residential building "aimed to evoke the qualities of Victorian detail and comparable scale within a modern contemporary style".

They also said a traffic impact study had been produced by consultants which demonstrated that the redevelopment would only have a small impact on current traffic conditions. In addition, the density of development within the site was more than justified.

The trust appeared to have reached its conclusions "without in-depth knowledge of either the design processes involved previously, or the depth of regard taken of the sites surroundings and intended lifting of its quality and status on the outskirts of the city."

Updated: 10:48 Wednesday, March 24, 2004