The disappearing brownfield
2004
2004
Government policy to use "brownfield land" (ie previously developed land, rather than greenfield/greenbelt land), along with the high demand
for housing in York, means that the city is covered with yellow planning
notices like the one pictured here, as bits of "spare" land
are proposed for redevelopment.
It can be difficult for us native old Yorkies to accept that our city
keeps changing. When I started taking these photographs and putting these
pages together I expressed some sadness that some of the more ramshackle
areas I remember have been cleared and used for residential development.
Some of us like the quiet forgotten corners, after all. Having talked
with friends I know I'm not the only one who misses the faded charm of
old industrial buildings.
But my reading and research for this site has changed my perception a little. I was born in the late 1960s, around the time of Lord Esher's influential report on the city. Having now read the report, I can see that in the years since a lot of work has been put in to make York a more attractive place, not only for tourists, but for residents. In the 1960s, areas in the centre were derelict, there had been no provision for the growing amount of traffic, and it all looked a bit grubby and unkempt, as many of the photos in Esher's report reveal. I might like quiet streets of tumbledown warehouses, but perhaps I have to forget my naive and romantic notions . . .
As long ago as the 1980s, in my teens, I could see how the city was changing. The riverside beyond Skeldergate Bridge was one of my favourite places to walk, twenty years ago. It was, as I remember, just a load of brick buildings, old warehouses. Soon after, the redevelopment of the riverside area began, and now it's luxury apartments. They're not unattractive, but I still sometimes miss the warm tones of old red brick.
It sounds romantic and fanciful, I know, but in many ways those old red-brick buildings said "history" to me more than the more obvious "historic" buildings do. Those corners of York are less common now, as every bit of land is reused.
I understand why old abandoned industrial buildings can't really be left as they are. Ultimately something has to be done and they are either demolished or sensitively refurbished. Sensitive redevelopment of the more impressive industrial buildings is always to be preferred (but it seems that another "solution" might be to leave them to rot in the elements before making a decision, so they're beyond saving, making it easier to flatten them).
York has always been protected by its committed citizens and its high-profile heritage organisations, and this work continues. In the 19th century the authorities wanted to demolish the city walls, but public pressure stopped them. In the 20th century they wanted to construct an inner ring road, and that wasn't allowed to happen either. And more recently a flawed plan to redevelop the area around York Castle (Clifford's Tower) has also been halted.
These larger schemes got a lot of attention, rightly. But what work on this website has revealed to me is just how much work goes on quietly year after year, on a smaller scale, to preserve York's heritage and improve the environment. The 1980s scheme to redevelop the Aldwark area has been much-admired, and in the years since other areas have been sensitively redeveloped. Though many York residents feel that there are too many residential developments, most of them are reasonably attractive, some of them quite striking. Maybe in York we're too dismissive of modern buildings, because we have so much that is old and quaint. But it is the mix of building from so many different centuries that makes York such an interesting place. I just hope that the new-build apartments won't cover every single space, tipping the balance so that the place starts to look like some kind of twee model village.
I can see very clearly now how government policy changes the finer details of our lives, in the places we live. York has always been somewhere people wanted to live, but just now, in the search for 'brownfield sites', there's a battle for land that seems unprecedented. I guess we should be grateful that we live in such a thriving, constantly developing city. But we'll be keeping an eye on those developers.