The end of the Second World War (1939-1945) marked a resumption of the creation of modern York and the associated popular causes of the conservation and care of the city’s heritage and natural environment.
Many of the issues that were important in 1930’s York continue to affect our lives today – creating healthy communities, relieving the city centre of through traffic and the future of the Castle area.
A number of organisations, including York Civic Trust, York Georgian Society and what is now the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, were founded during the period to be part of these discussions.
In 1932, the government 1932 passed ‘The Town and Country Planning Act’, which transformed planning and development in the UK. York’s response was to develop the City of York Town Planning Scheme which was approved in March 1937. The scheme included creating a ring road around the city walls to alleviate the congestion caused by through traffic in the city centre.
Alongside this plan the city was changing; redundant buildings were demolished – including All Saints Church in King’s Square, the city boundaries were extended to include Acomb and Dringhouses and aspirational projects to create a modern city were begun – including the construction of new municipal offices on the site of what is now Castle Car Park.
The construction of the inner ring road to solve the problem of through traffic congestion did not continue after the war. Those parts built before the outbreak of hostilities mostly still exist – in particular Kingsway North (in Clifton) and Kingsway West (in Acomb), but the proposed route was thought to be too close to the city centre and much more substantial new plans for an outer and an inner ring road were developed during the war eventually being published in 1948.
While the Outer Ring Road came into being, with the development of the A64 and the A1234 the proposed inner ring road never materialised. A reworked scheme of the early 1970s was very unpopular and public pressure resulted in its abandonment. While the city is better for not seeing the demolition of large swathes of built-up areas immediately outside the city walls, through-traffic, after nearly 100 years, still causes congestion and inconvenience for the life of the city centre, and the green spaces promised have never materialised.
City of York Council will be consulting this spring on a proposal to introduce a City Centre Sustainable Transport Corridor – perhaps we can add another positive chapter to addressing the issue of through-traffic.
The 1937 scheme for the new Civic Centre adjacent to Clifford’s Tower replaced the looming Victorian prison that had been demolished in 1935, ending York Castle’s centuries-old function of incarceration of criminals, political and religious prisoners and debtors. Construction of the new municipal buildings designed by the architect Donald McMorran of London began in earnest in the late 1930s only to be interrupted by the war.
The project was abandoned after the war with groundworks and the basement level left exposed until the creation of the Castle Car Park in the late 1960s.
Following nearly 60 years as a car park the future of one of York’s most important historic areas in once again in the spotlight. After a number of years of design development, public consultation and refinement, a new scheme for the Castle area will come forward in the coming months.
The ambition of the council is to create a new city centre green space that provides fresh public realm to balance Museum Gardens on the other side of the city. Perhaps we could finally see the additional city centre green space to match the ambition of the 1930s and 1940s but without the demolition of large areas of the city centre environs.
As with every century of the 2000 years of York’s existence – the city has undergone changes to reflect the needs of the day. Some changes are swift and others more prolonged.
The issues of dealing with through traffic in the city centre and the desire for additional green space to enhance our historic spaces are not simple and have been under discussion for the last century and longer but perhaps with these new 2025 schemes coming forward from the council for public scrutiny there is light at the end of the tunnel.