Coppergate 'not over yet'

Philip Crowe, chairman of the campaign group York Tomorrow, said that even though Land Securities' £60 million scheme for shops and apartments had been thrown out, new applications could still come in for the site near Clifford's Tower.

"Although the current scheme has been unequivocally condemned, the way is still open for a new application to be made, and applications for additional retail space on this or other sites could possibly be justified," he said.

York Tomorrow has been pressing for the site to be turned instead into parkland.

Mr Crowe said that on almost every count, the inspector who held a public inquiry last year and then recommended that the Coppergate scheme should be turned down, had uncompromisingly rejected the developers' arguments.

There were few issues where the Secretary of State had disagreed with the inspector or been unable to come to an opinion.

"However, the Secretary of State indicated that the case for a substantial increase in shopping space in the city centre had been made, as the objectors had been unable to produce counter arguments to merit rejection of the developers' reasoning."

Mr Crowe said this was hardly surprising, as objectors had not had the resources to commission expert evidence and surveys which were produced by the council and developers.

He said the Minister had refused to state, as requested by the developers, that development of the site was acceptable and desirable in principle. He had said instead that every proposal would have to be looked at on its merits at the time.

He did not believe Land Securities would try to appeal against the decision, but this did not mean another application would not be made for the site. "This is by no means the end of the Coppergate saga."

He claimed that the rejection of the scheme had raised the issue of the competence of City of York Council, which had spent a great deal of council taxpayers' money on the public inquiry.

Updated: 08:53 Wednesday, September 24, 2003