AN ENVIRONMENTAL group claims a new model village on York's outskirts would destroy abundant wildlife and wildflower meadows.

The York Natural Environment Trust says New Osbaldwick should be condemned, like the controversial Coppergate Riverside city centre shops scheme, which was recently thrown out by the Government.

Vice-chairman Barry Potter claims the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust could hardly have picked a worse site to develop with a 540-home new settlement. He said 53 acres of arable farmland elsewhere could have been chosen without anyone minding too much.

But New Osbaldwick would destroy an "irreplaceable" York landscape, and "no amount of loft insulation or cycling provision can make it sustainable".

He told the Evening Press: "The environmental cost is 53 acres of ancient ridge and furrow wildflower meadows, wonderful hedgerows, trees and abundant wildlife."

He argued that building on the area would conflict with national and local policies promoting biodiversity and limiting the development of greenfield sites.

He believed the new village would be a commercial development, with more than 350 of the homes for speculative private sale - and very few of these going to current York residents. "Like Coppergate, it and its advocates deserve our condemnation."

But the development's project manager, Ian Atkinson, said a range of steps would be taken to preserve ecologically and historically important aspects of the site. He said ridge and furrow farmland on the northern part of the site, dating back to medieval times, would be preserved as managed grassland.

Hedgerows of historic and ecological value would also be kept, and the trust had offered to plant new hedgerows off site to compensate for hedges which did have to be removed.

The trust would also consider transferring some areas of grassland off the site to another location elsewhere. "Properly managed, that can be done," he said.

An outline application for the new settlement has been submitted by the trust to City of York Council, and may be considered before Christmas, with the trust hoping to start construction work by next summer if the go-ahead is granted.

Updated: 08:57 Saturday, September 27, 2003