Revealed: Bold £19m plan to create a York riverside park and transform city centre streets

York will bid for £19 million of Government levelling up funding to create a riverside walkway in Coney Street, transform the Castle Car Park and revamp Parliament Street and St Sampson’s Square.

The council hopes the projects could bring 31,000 extra visitors to the city each year.

The levelling up fund is designed to invest public cash in infrastructure projects. But bids from high priority areas are most likely to get funding and York has been ranked as one of the lowest priority councils.

Nevertheless City of York Council has applied for money to complete three city centre projects.

They include plans to transform Castle Car Park and the Eye of York into a new public space, featuring a riverside park – with the council bidding for just over £10 million from the funding pot for this scheme.

There are also proposals to revamp Coney Street and extend the riverside walkway, with a bid of almost £4.2 million. A third project would see Parliament Street and St Sampson’s Square improved at a cost of nearly £4.9 million.

Bring 31K more visitors

The council says the investment will boost new uses in the high street “diversifying and adding vibrancy to the city centre in the wake of significant retail losses”.

It adds: “The projects would realise a combined peak additional 946,000 attendees across a suite of key attractions and drive 31,000 additional city visits [a year], improve and create three hectares of free-to access public spaces, and represent a return of £3.30 for every £1 of public investment.

“Crucially, investment is targeted at those employment sectors which most support the city’s more deprived communities, and would provide improved accessibility and amenity for all.”

As part of the levelling up fund criteria, the council needs to find match funding for a minimum of 10 per cent of its bid. This would see the local authority put £662,000 of its budget towards the plans plus extra private sector and West Yorkshire Transport funding to meet the requirements of the bid.

The council is confident that its bid meets the Government’s criteria – but says if it is unsuccessful the application can be used for future funding opportunities.

Council documents say: “The three inter-connected city centre projects are designed to deliver high profile, transformative change in the heart of the city – driving vibrancy and benefitting residents, whilst underpinning the resilience of the critical tourism, retail and hospitality sectors.

“Together the linked projects are intended to help create a coherent and resurgent city centre environment: the Castle project will provide a series of new cultural anchor spaces at the southern edge of the city centre for events and recreation, complimenting commercially oriented events in an improved Parliament Street, with investment at Coney Street supporting the retail core and creating a complementary riverside leisure environment.”