SCORES of extra vehicles are set to use one of the four access routes into York’s new Derwenthorpe development - while fewer cars will use two of the other roads.

The Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust has applied to City of York Council to amend the original planning permission for the 540-home scheme on York’s eastern outskirts.

It wants Fifth Avenue, Tang Hall, to carry vehicles going to and from 277 dwellings, instead of 185 homes, as was originally proposed.

But it is seeking to reduce the number of homes reached through Osbaldwick Village from 105 to 64, and the number reached through the Meadlands estate from 125 dwellings to 74. The fourth access route, Temple Avenue, would be unchanged, serving 125 homes.

Nigel Ingram, the trust’s director of development and asset management, said priority was being given to pedestrians and cyclists at Derwenthorpe.

The development was being divided into four neighbourhoods, and cross-neighbourhood traffic was being prevented through bollards and one-way systems at various points.

“However, this has the unavoidable effect in some places of preventing residents from accessing the front of their properties with their own private vehicles.”

The trust believed a resident, pedestrian and cyclist-friendly environment could be achieved by removing many bollards but providing access to dwellings from the north-west, rather than the south.

Osbaldwick Independent councillor Mark Warters gave a cautious welcome to the proposed reduction in the amount of traffic using The Village, which he claimed was totally unsuitable to cater for a huge increase in vehicles.

Coun Tina Funnell, whose Heworth ward includes Fifth Avenue, said the change “wasn’t ideal” and its impact would be monitored and managed carefully.

But she said the traffic had to go somewhere and Fifth Avenue was possibly a better route to take it than the others.