Decision details

York Station Gateway Project – Package 2.
Permanent closure of the City Walls between Station Rise and Micklegate Bar for a further 4-week period until high-risk activity - piling works are complete and Health and Safety measures have been put in place.
The extension to the closure is required owing to unexpected ground conditions which required further design to the piling, and equipment breakdown delaying the piling works.
The 4-week closure allows safety measures to be installed, enabling the walls to be opened safely from Friday 26th July 2024, or earlier subject to a further risk assessment.
Decision - Implement Option 3. Whilst further closure is unfortunate public safety is a priority and I note work to find a solution to allow access is planned for the summer holidays.

Options Considered:
Due to the permanent and currently ongoing change in landscape at the foot of the walls, a change in behaviour is expected of the public, owing to interest in the works. Options considered are numbered below:
1.Reopening the walls without implementing any safety measures:
Reopening the walls immediately was considered, but doing so without implementing or considering any safety measures fails to address the Health and Safety risks identified by Sisk and the Ancient Monuments manager, potentially exposing The Council to liability for injuries to the public; such as:
•Increased risk of fall due to visitors leaning over Walls owing to the interest in works and/or the permanent changes to the landscape.
•Spray from concrete hose delivery pipe during piling.
•Discharge of materials due to auger withdrawal during piling operations.
•Spray from cleaning equipment during piling operations.
Deploying marshals to supervise the public on the Walls is not considered practical given the lack of space on the walls and the cost involved.
2.Maintaining the closure for a further 4-week period whilst the installation of temporary safety measures is arranged:
The installation of temporary safety measures such as safety netting, Heras fencing and acrow props have been considered. Temporary mounted debris screens have also been considered. We do not believe this is a practical solution as it requires access on the sloping nature of the embankment. Also, as these require Scheduled Ancient Monument consent (SMC), this would not address the issue any faster than a permanent solution.
Temporary measures require daily checks to ensure they are fit for purpose, which need to be resourced and poses significant installation and monitoring costs.
If the material is to be fixed to the monument, we require SMC and careful consideration in terms of stress to the monument must be considered. Temporary measures fail to adequately address the long-term concerns related to the permanent change to the Station Gateway.
As most of the costs are labour and resource, installing temporary measures is estimated to cost approximately £15,000 and we have not identified a practical temporary solution yet.
Temporary measures do not address the residual heightened risk of falls due to behavioural changes by visitors on the City Walls, such as those already observed during the Queen Street bridge demolition and preparatory piling works. Future activities in the programme to create the public realm and new Station Gateway would likely require a barrier system owing to the same curious behaviours. Therefore, a permanent solution is likely required.
3.Maintaining the closure for a further 4-week period whilst a permanent solution is agreed with Historic England:
Other areas of the City Walls with a heightened risk of falls include 25mm stainless steel safety bars, installed between the crenels. This option will be explored by the Council’s Ancient monuments manager alongside Historic England. The estimated cost of this permanent solution is approximately £20,000, with a short lead-in time and estimated delivery period of 2 weeks.
The heightened risk of falls due to ongoing construction works had been identified and owes to the initial 6-week closure agreement, however the residual risk had not been identified and only became more apparent as the scale of landscape change at the foot of the wall was revealed with the removal of Queen Street bridge.
Implementing a permanent solution will prevent the likelihood to need to do further wall closures or repeated spending on temporary safety measures. Therefore, using the proposed 4-week closure to investigate and install a permanent solution is the most financially optimal option. The only other wall closure anticipated would be during the full weekend closure, planned to demolish the balance of the existing Queen Street bridge.
It is considered that residual risk remains in this section of the walls owing to the permanent change to the highway configuration around Tofts Tower.
4.Maintaining another full 8-week closure until the piling and capping beam works are complete.
Keeping the walls closed for a further 8-weeks brings a significant chance of reputational damage to the authority, as this is during the peak visiting season. The matter of still requiring a solution for the walls needs to be discussed with Historic England during the next requested 4-week closure period.
Option 4 does not address the potential for residual risk associated with falls, debris and permanent landscape changes.
Feedback from Historic England regarding these options is expected on Tuesday 02nd July. We expect the walls to be ready to open safely from Friday 26th July 2024, or sooner owing to a further risk assessment. The Council’s ancient monument manager is having a preliminary discussion but as stated above precedent has been set elsewhere on other elements of the City Wall if deemed necessary. We wouldn’t make suggestions that we believe would not be acceptable to Historic England because they set good practice for the management of ancient monuments that we follow. The fallback position is that the risks will continue to be monitored and appropriate actions taken to keep visitors safe.

Option 2 is workable but options 1 and 4 have been rejected on the basis of Health and Safety risks.