Agenda item

Members will receive an update report on the Castle and Eye project covering the status of funding, delivery approach and preparedness.

The report was presented by the Director of City Development, Head of City Development and Assistant Director of Finance.

The Director of City Development addressed member queries about the scheme, explaining that the present car park was of poor quality in a unique location, and there was also a fundamental need to take traffic out of the core of the city.

Members asked about the revenue implications to the loss of income from parking. The Assistant Director of Finance responded that there were no plans for further borrowing from the council, as funds were already secured, the intention was to seek additional grant funding from West Yorkshire travel.

He advised that two million pounds in revenue was expected from the Castle Car Park this year. There was typically capacity to accommodate this parking in other city car parks, but not all of these car parks were run by the council, consequently the redistributed parking revenue would not necessarily all come back to the authority.

Members asked for assurance that money for the development would be obtainable from West Yorkshire Travel and would not come out of the budget for the York Outer ring road. The Director of City Development confirmed this, stating that there would be no impact on this budget, and the West Yorkshire Transport Fund were positive about the plans.

Members wanted to ensure the earmarked £200,000 was enough to ensure all planned improvements could be completed around the Piccadilly Multi Storey Car Park with regard to personal safety/CCTV. The Director of City Development assured that fully monitored CCTV was included in plans under this budget. Panic buttons would also be considered though were not part of current plans.

Members also raised the issue of Blue Badge spaces in this Car Park, given reports of problems with reliability of the passenger lift with the current carp park design. Members asked whether officers had considered maintenance of blue badge spaces at the Castle Car Park throughout the alterations. The Director of City Development advised there were no current plans to improve the lift but officers could consider this issue from a maintenance perspective. He said that currently continuity of Blue Badge spaces at the Castle Car Park was not being factored in, as there were a number of practical considerations that needed to be accounted for here, but he would look to maintain spaces if possible.

Members expressed concern regarding the potential revenue loss to remove the car park and the Director of City Development responded that while non-council car parks could be used in lieu of the Castle Car Park, the local NCP car parks operated with a substantial amount of contract parking. The Assistant Director of Finance added that historically when the Castle Car Park was full, other council car parks had benefitted from displaced traffic, and when the Rose Theatre occupied the space of the Castle Car Park there had not been a significant revenue loss.

Members asked whether officers had received any soft intelligence about car park choice among city centre businesses. The Director of City Development stated that some consultation with businesses had been conducted.

Members asked about the move away from using the planned park as an event space. The Director of City Development said this had been an Executive decision based on representations from heritage organisations. He explained that the site was not well served for a substantial power supply, but recent amendments based on consultation had been made to put in water and base-level electric so that small-scale events could be undertaken in the space.

Members asked about the bridge over the river Foss being removed from plans and asked whether anything in the scheme precluded reintroducing this concept at a later date. The Director of City Planning noted that the area of planned development for this bridge was located in an area of extremely special biodiversity which would need to be mitigated, and the bridge had been removed from the scheme for ecological, rather than financial, reasons. Were this to be revisited in the future, it would need to be brought back to council as a separate scheme.

Members raised concern over using the area for markets and events when the building adjacent to the site served as York’s Crown Court. The Director of City Development said that officers had not previously engaged with the court, but the proposed area for events was on the other side of the site. Planting as part of the scheme discouraged lingering on court side of Eye of York. Events would not be on this side, rather on the grassed area by the Tower, pulling people away from the court area.

The chair summed up the points raised, and the committee thanked officers and

Resolved:   To note the report and support the resolutions of executive as set out in the report.

Reason:      To support the progression of the Castle and Eye scheme to delivery phases.