RAILTRACK has abandoned plans to build a new zonal headquarters in York.

The rail company said two years ago that it wanted to build a single HQ building on land beside the city railway station.

Railtrack said the new building would enable its 500 York employees - who worked at seven different places around the city - to work together on one site.

But the move would have meant the next-door York Railway Institute losing sporting facilities in buildings under lease from Railtrack.

The institute was at one stage told that Railtrack wanted the building back within 12 months, and an institute spokesman said the move would cause a lot of problems.

But the proposals were subsequently put on hold, and a Railtrack spokeswoman said yesterday that it had no plans at the moment to build the new HQ. She said the company - which decided in 1999 against moving its London North Eastern zone headquarters out of York to another city such as Leeds - had enough offices elsewhere around the city.

Updated: 11:56 Tuesday, August 14, 2001