At our event with IPUP on 22nd January we introduced the York: Living with History Public Inquiry going by raising the question of Stonebow House. As is widely reported now, at the January Cabinet meeting, it was agreed that City of York Council would buy out North Yorkshire Council freehold – £62,250 – so they would fully control the land, though not the building.
As York Press journalist Stephen Lewis has found out, this timing is probably not accidental as the previous owner of the building was Brightsea UK, Ltd who have gone into receivership with its assets being bought up by a company called Loanstar. So the CYC might be able to negotiate with the owner of the building but nothing is certain and any decisions seem unlikely to happen quickly.
However, doing something is clearly an aspiration, as Council Leader, James Alexander is quoted as saying the options include:
‘Recladding; demolishing and rebuilding or upgrading, but we would need to work with existing business, the Duchess and Fibbers, and others that are there’.
Since our IPUP talk, we’ve been developing the lines of inquiry opened up.
Rather than heading straight into the ‘heritage’ debate about the building, we’ve taken our cue from the IPUP discussions to begin rather with question of what Stonebow makes possible in York which other buildings in York don’t – whether because of rent levels or its location on the edge of the city centre. Clearly, Fibbers and Duchess are crucial – and many of the public comments about Stonebow mention the importance of both venues. However, we’ve also been looking at Heron Foods and Jorvik Café and doing a little price comparison.
2ltr Milk: Heron Foods = £1.10 M&S = £1.49
Tea: Jorvik Café = £1.40 Costa = £1.75
Cappuccino: Jorvik Café = £2.00 Costa = £2.15
Surely one of the dangers of redeveloping every square metre of York is that more affordable footholds in the city disappear. Or, at least, there needs to be active management of rents to allow a more mixed ecology of spaces and shops.
This relates to a point made during one of the conversations at our Live Inquiry Drop In at York Explore last Monday evening. A woman who’d grown up in York, now in her 70s, noted that it’s become harder and harder to do normal everyday shopping in York. She pointed to the loss of the Butcher on Petergate and the Veg Shop on Blake Street.
I don’t think it’s difficult to see the links between these concerns and desired annual £1bn tourist spend. But there’s much more work to do as part of this Public Inquiry to understand how tourist money affects York and whether an expansion of our understandings of York’s history and heritage to include gigging, punk, green grocers and butchers might help us maintain a city you can live in and not just ‘stroll around enjoying the ambiance’ (as 85% visitors say they do, Visit York).
Notes taken at our first Live Inquiry Drop In, 3rd February 2014, York Explore. Next one will be 14th February, 3.30-5.30pm (Brierley Room), all very welcome.
‘I try to use individual/independent shops in York’
‘It’s the history that makes York what it is BUT it can’t turn into just more and more coffee shops’
York: Living with History 