Andy D'Agorne

Can you have 'sustainable development' in the Green Belt with a 400 space car park? That was the issue under discussion at tonight's planning committee. Representatives for the developer Dobbie's garden centre sent every member of the planning committee a long letter complaining of bias in the planning officer's report - he had the temerity to recommend refusal of permission for a green roofed timber framed Garden Centre next to the Designer Outlet, which was originally built on the site of the old Naburn Hospital. One committee member revealed she had been born there, while another suggested a Harry Potter theme with Dobbie and (Barry) Potter featuring as protagonists. The council staged a sound defence of its position with an economic expert to state that the local economy was in good health, legal advice that jobs could not be 'very special circumstances' to warrant departure from national and local policy on green belt. At the end of debate, the plan was rejected in spite of representations from Visit York and MP John Grogan to support the development. (amazing how such respected authorities can argue to ignore policy when it suits them!)

Next up was a truely 'green' development from Panter Hudspith for Carmelite St next to the Hungate development site - a 6 storey office block with green roof, ground source heat pumps and minimal basement car parking. The design was actually based on the winner in a design competition for JRF in 2002 See  http://www.jrf.org.uk/housingandcare/carmelite/ The developers said that they intended to acheive a BREEAM rating of 'excellent' - bizarrely the planner said in his report it would be 'unreasonable' to condition more than 'very good' which is what is set as a minimum in council policy. After some debate the rating offered by the developer was accepted and when we had all said our bit about how much we would like to see more applications like this it was unanimously passed.

To quote from their website:

"Panter Hudspith are a group of people committed to creating high quality modern buildings that respond sensitively to their environment but remain unquestionably of their time. We promote dialogue and careful interaction between clients, consultants and contractors and actively include both local and national authorities in all stages of the design and construction process. This search for inclusion creates an architecture that allows people to make places.

We aim to confront design problems in an innovative way, and to date have received awards from the RIBA and Civic Trust, and recognition from both English Heritage and CABE. We work as a team of architects, designers and organisers who are dedicated to creating buildings of the highest quality."

 Now we could do with a bit more of that for York,couldnt we?!!