As another pub faces demolition to make way for housing, STEPHEN LEWIS asks if

can anything be done to stem the rising tide of development in York

THESE days, you only have to blink and it seems another pub, club or guest house in York is being pulled down to make way for luxury flats. Or, in the case of Frog Hall a drive-through for the burger chain of McDonald's. The Frog and the City Arms have closed; time has been called on Layerthorpe Working Men's Club; and now builders Jones Homes want to pull down the Gimcrack on Fulford Road and build 19 three-story town houses there instead.

It's not only York's pubs and clubs that are under threat. You probably won't find an empty plot or a decent-sized garden in the centre of York that hasn't been eyed up by a hungry developer at one time or another: and everywhere you look, new blocks of flats are springing up like mushrooms.

Little surprise, then, given the hunger for land in the centre of York, that most of the bids put in for the doomed Barbican Centre involve earmarking much of the site for housing.

And if York City FC and its Bootham Crescent ground can't be saved, who would bet against the ground being turned into another high-class housing development?

With demand for urban housing sky high and land in the city centre reaching up to £1 million an acre, it's a prime site.

It is no secret why there is such a demand for smart, new, city-centre homes in York. City living is back in vogue says estate agent Ben Hudson, of Hudson Moody - especially among the wealthy, younger professionals now making York their home.

He says the the city is booming with first rank companies such as Norwich Union and CPP making their bases here. Add to that the fact that Leeds is becoming a legal and financial centre second only to London, and that many of the professionals working there choose to live in York, and it's inevitable that smart city centre homes should be at a premium.

Ben sees the situation as quite healthy - a case of developers responding to need. There are those, however, who are worried.

Sue Lacy, who led the unsuccessful campaign to save the Frog Hall, believes local people are being priced out of the housing market - and that the developer's obsessions with pulling down pubs and clubs and building on every square inch of available land is in danger of creating a city without a soul.

Layerthorpe, where the working men's club and Frog Hall have both recently closed, is a depressing place to live now, she says. Communities need pubs and clubs as focal points. "With more and more houses, you a place to meet people and socialise, or it becomes a lonely world."

Ben Hudson says that for every suburban pub that closes, a new city centre bar or restaurant opens. What is happening is a change in the way we want to live, he argues. "Before, people wanted to go out to the villages and suburbs. Now city centre living is back in vogue." Yes, pubs in the suburbs are being closed, he agrees. "But they are being replaced by a contemporary, cosmopolitan style of bar, caf and restaurant.

"At night if you walk through the city centre it is a buzzing place, whereas ten years ago it was fairly quiet. It's giving York a more cosmopolitan style and atmosphere."

But Bill Shaw of York Sustainable Development, a former Green parliamentary candidate for York, believes it could also be creating within York a mini version of the old North/South divide - with the ordinary working people who traditionally made up the bulk of the city's population being pushed out to the margins.

"Are we going to have a city centre full of luxury accommodation and an outer ring of suburbs which is where the real York people live?" he asks.

There is a need for regulation. Most people, Sue Lacy among them, look to the city council as the local planning authority to provide that - and are disappointed at what they see as its failure to stem the tide of infill development.

But the truth is the council's powers to restrict development are much more limited than many people suppose.

CITY of York Council's overall development strategy is to protect the green belt and try to ensure at least 60 per cent of new homes are built on 'brownfield' land. That's a Government requirement - but unfortunately, it adds to the pressure on scarce land within York itself.

What's more, the council is bound by a range of national, regional and local planning regulations which severely restrict its powers. It's inability to insist that a certain number of 'affordable homes' be included in more of the new city centre developments is a good example of that comparative lack of muscle.

When the question of affordable homes is raised, Ben Hudson points to the council's powers to demand that any new housing development should include an element of 'social housing'.

In fact, for many of the smaller developments now springing up all across York's centre, the council has no such power at all, says head of development control Cliff Carruthers. The requirement that a certain proportion of any new development should consist of affordable homes doesn't apply at present to small infill developments of less than about 25 homes.

The council's hands are also tied when it comes to resisting applications to turn pubs into housing. The onus is on the council to give good reasons for refusing, says Mr Carruthers.

The city's local plan says community facilities such as pubs should be protected unless it can be shown there is no demand for them or there is an alternative nearby. Unfortunately, when you're talking about a city pub, it's not easy to argue there is no nearby alternative. When you live in a city, there will always be another boozer not too far away. And the fact that most people feel a loyalty to a particular local doesn't count in the planning world.

It's not all up for the Gimcrack just yet. There may be other grounds for fighting the application. But even if there are, it will be little consolation to regulars at Frog Hall or other pubs threatened with demolition.

Bill Shaw accepts the council is not to blame. He believes the problem is that the planning legislation the council is bound by is out of date and inflexible. "There needs to be a change in planning law in Britain to allow communities and local people more say," he says.

The latest Government planning green paper promises 'fundamental change'. Unfortunately, it concentrates mainly on speeding up planning decisions, rather than giving greater freedom and autonomy to local planners to respond to local concern. There is nothing in it which would make local people's sadness at losing their beloved pub or club a legitimate ground for refusing permission to pull it down.

Which means York's gradual but remorseless change into a yuppie city will probably continue.

Updated: 10:24 Friday, January 18, 2002