Turnstiles, Grosvenor Road end, 24 April 2022

At the end of the previous page, after looking at the clearance work on the Duncombe Barracks site, I said we were on our way to the library next. But on the way, turning from Burton Stone Lane onto Grosvenor Road, we pass Bootham Crescent, and it’s not really possible to ignore the fact — though in many ways I’d like to — that clearance work has started here too in the last couple of weeks.

In late afternoon sunshine there’s still a certain charm to the familiar red-painted turnstiles. Some of them, and the nearby gates, have been boarded over quite a few times, attempts to keep out young intruders who kept finding ways in.

Since the sale of the ground was completed, and in preparation for the demolition, security guards have been on site. Presumably in connection with that, lights above the turnstile gates were on again in the evenings. Odd to see that again, reminding me of evening games, queues here, supporters passing and laughing, police vans parked.

I think – I hope – that we all understand the cultural significance of old traditional football grounds like this one. And also that for fans of this particular club, the end of this one has been poignant and painful.

An excellent piece by Tony Cole in the Guardian describes the importance of Bootham Crescent from a fan’s perspective.

Dear old place. It looks so humble, small, unassuming, this part of the Grosvenor Road end. Hard to imagine the tall townhouses that will in due course be built here.

Inside the ground, in recent days, machinery has been lifting the once carefully-tended turf, scooping it up. Turf and earth piled on what used to be the pitch. Green grass and yellow dandelions now in mounds of brown.

Outside, some distance above the ground, on the grey-brown wall of the Grosvenor Road end, a plant, a corydalis, green leaves and yellow flowers. Still surviving up there since arriving as a wind-blown seed some years ago. Below it, several clumps of its offspring.

For now, while the heavy plant machinery does its work inside, the little plant outside blooms on.

It may have time to set seed again before this wall comes down. So maybe some day, when this wall is gone, a crack in a pavement or a townhouse forecourt might give a new home to its cheery yellow and green.

But for now, by York City’s old home, I’m remembering the red and blue.

Goodbye Bootham Crescent, dear old neighbour.

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December 2019: Revised plans for Bootham Crescent housing (ref: 19/00246/FULM) (Persimmon Homes)

Earlier this year I wrote about the planning application to build housing on the Bootham Crescent football ground. On 18 December I mentioned a critical report on Persimmon (whose houses it will be filled with), and the fact that the planning application seemed to have stalled, with no documents added for some time.

Since then, a few new documents have appeared for our perusal, on the planning portal, dated 20 December. See this link, or search for 19/00246/FULM via planningaccess.york.gov.uk/

I thought I’d mention a few of the more interesting points I’ve noticed.

There’s no new written information as yet, just a couple of huge and rather detailed visual representations of the site layout, and some more information on house types.

I suspect most readers won’t be much interested in house types, but the changes to the layout are interesting.

Memorial garden, terracing, wall, and a flagpole

The layout includes a memorial garden that is more central to the housing, rather than on the western edge.

Also indicated on the plan is a ‘section of retained terracing’, where the Popular Stand is currently. Behind it, a section of retained wall from the back of the Pop Stand, which may include signs, or artwork.

A flagpole is also included, to the south-eastern side, where a path leads in to the memorial garden area.

Detail of memorial garden area (ref: 19/00246/FULM) (Persimmon Homes)

A report written some months back (18 April) by Jonathan Kenyon at the city council recommended these elements in a revised design of the site. It’s available on this link (PDF) or via the list of documents for the planning application (ref 19/00246/FULM).

Elements that have been identified in work by Historic England and which should form part of the sites character include historic retaining walls (this includes a narrow section of the wall on the south side with reveals by the site entrance), retention of part of the tunnel beneath the west stand and re-use of the historic terraces (taken from the west or south sides) and timber fencing.

I’d like to read the original report by Historic England that this report refers to, but it isn’t available on the planning portal documents.

An appendix at the end of the report goes into more detail on what should be preserved/reused. It includes:

… As a lasting legacy, create a focal point for memory and orientation. The western boundary wall supports the back of the Popular Stand and forms part of a unique tunnel beneath the stand. The tunnel permitted rival fans to switch ends at half time but has been disused for some time.

…Memorial garden bordered by a wooden picket fence reclaimed from in front of the Popular Stand. (There will be no memorial garden at the new stadium). The one at Bootham Crescent will therefore provide a home for any existing memorials, ashes and interment caskets (subject to family wishes) but also future interments.

… Another seemingly unique historic feature of Bootham Crescent was the lowering of the club flag to signal that there were 5 minutes to go before the end of each match. The flag flew from a flagpole originally located between the south-east corner of the pitch and the main entrance. It is proposed that a new flagpole is erected as close as possible to this original location, and that it flies a replica of the club flag as a permanent and symbolic reminder of fans’ allegiance to Bootham Crescent.

Looking at the revised plans now available it seems that most of the suggested elements have been incorporated. Looks like this doesn’t include the retention of the historic walls near the football ground entrance, however.

Road looking more likely to link ….

The angle of the road at the north-western end of the site is different from the original proposal, having dropped slightly, to join the western boundary where it appears it could link up with a road that may one day be part of the adjacent site, the Duncombe Barracks site, which I’ve written about before, and which is now council-owned.

Planned road alignment (ref: 19/00246/FULM) (Persimmon Homes)

More on that later perhaps.

. . . . .

Other recommendations appear to have been ignored, on heights, and distances, on the southern boundary. But I won’t attempt to cover that here. I don’t like writing about this, it’s all quite depressing. I hope that York City fans find the revised plans better than the previous ones. That’s all I can say on the subject just now. No doubt there will be more in the local media on this in due course. In the meantime have a look at the planning portal for the documents mentioned above and any others that appear after the Christmas and New Year break.

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From the Design and Access statement for planning application 19/00246/FULM

Time to emerge from winter hibernation, to mention this …

19/00246/FULM | Erection of 80 Dwellings with associated access, infrastructure, landscaping, public open space and parking. | York City Football Club Bootham Crescent York YO30 7AQ

— which has recently appeared on the council’s planning portal, some time after it was reported in local media. (If that link doesn’t work, go to https://planningaccess.york.gov.uk/online-applications/ and put 19/00246/FULM in the search box.)

A while back I mentioned the exhibition on the proposals for the site, and later wrote about aspects of the history of this valuable piece of land. But at that point we didn’t have an actual planning application, and now we do. Now it’s all official, and will at some stage go to the planning committee for approval. Not this month I hope, as we haven’t really had long enough to look at it properly.

As is always the case, there are many documents, reports, diagrams, maps, plans. So far most of them are those submitted by the applicants, with very little input as yet from the public or from council officers and statutory consultees. Neighbours are supposed to comment by 11 March, as the official letter sent out to local residents stated.

From CYC, delivered to local residents

Seeing this brought back unpleasant memories of 2002. But I’ll try to forget those, and focus on this present application, which unlike the 2002 application seems unlikely to be abandoned (or ‘Finally disposed of’, as it’s described in an interesting list of the football ground’s planning history on the council’s planning portal).

Of most interest is probably the Design and Access Statement (PDF on this link), which gives an overview of the various aspects of the development.

There’s to be some kind of marker of the centre of the pitch. As the document states, the site could/should

incorporate features which make reference to the site’s soon to be former use as a football ground, for example, through the marking of the centre spot within the development proposal.

So the development includes

the creation of a feature point around the location of the pitch centre spot.

Which seems appropriate and welcome, but looking at the illustration and further detail it’s hard to see how this will work as anything particularly impressive, as it appears to be in the middle of a road.

The secondary route to the west features an open vista through to the public open space. It incorporates a pinch point in which the road narrows to a width of 3.5 metres to slow vehicle speeds as they approach the public open space. This allows for the creation of a feature point around the location of the pitch centre spot.

Though I couldn’t find anything about it in the planning application documents, the football club’s press release when the planning application was submitted also mentioned that:

an area within the public open space will be allocated as a place for remembrance as well as there being permanent reminders of the club’s long history on the site.

I couldn’t find any more detail on this, but a proposed laurel hedge shown on one of the documents, in the green space to the west, may be connected with it.

Some aspects of the ground’s history, heritage, and significance have been previously highlighted on these pages.

In response to the documents recently made available with the planning application it seems appropriate now to think more about the impact on the natural environment and the non-human creatures that also frequent the site.

Trees, birds, bats

Among the documents submitted as part of the planning application there’s a bat survey, and ecological appraisal, and an arboricultural report. All three were prepared by Quants environmental. I assume/hope that the council’s own officers will respond to these in due course.

As previously mentioned, at the edge of the planned green space to the west of the site, on the MoD/Duncombe Barracks side of the boundary, there’s a line of mature trees. The arboricultural report (PDF here) submitted as part of the planning application states that

It is recommended that all trees along the western boundary are retained due to their large prominent size and the area of mature urban tree canopy cover they provide in the local landscape.

Good to read this, though it doesn’t guarantee their survival. A few years back the largest of these ash trees was felled when the MoD built a new firing range (15/02506/FUL). Not pleasant to see men with chainsaws taking down a healthy ash tree. The location of the planned open space next to these trees should mean that no further damage is done, I hope.

The ecological appraisal report (PDF here) is dated June 2014, so it’s not exactly a current appraisal of the site.

It provoked a few thoughts and questions, regarding how a site is seen by a professional surveying it rather than a person living close to it day to day, year after year.

It makes the place sound a bit dull.

Due to the urban nature of the site, regular disturbance, intensive management, lack of connectivity and minimal vegetation the site was not considered to be of significant value to bird species of moderate-high conservation value, with only common species such as rock dove and blackbird likely to use the site for breeding purposes.

The ground and its pitch has had far more wildlife value than that, I’d suggest. Swallows were to be seen frequently around and over the football ground in summer 2018. Perhaps not actually nesting in the stands – though perhaps the council’s own ecology officers could look into that – but clearly attracted to the large green area, despite the ‘intensive management’. Then there are the swifts that screech across the sky over the stands every summer, and the tawny owls I’ve sometimes seen and heard when they’ve perched on the wall at the Grosvenor Road end and called into the night, and all the birds that find worms in the well-watered pitch when other grassed areas are too dry and drought-parched (eg summer 2018).

All will have to adapt to the reduction in green space, as they’ve had to do in so many other places.

There will of course be planting/landscaping of the small garden areas to the front of the houses. Will these be full of planting that in some way, perhaps in an intelligent and inspiring and well-informed 21st century kind of way, tries to compensate for the reduction in green space and the impact of that? Perhaps plants chosen to support bees and other insects? Or perhaps edible and interesting things? Maybe walnut trees on the green space area?

This is quite a large development, and an opportunity to do a little bit of good, to make up for so much habitat loss. But then it’s a housing development to make profit, so it probably won’t.

Heritage, histories, images

As previously mentioned, a Historic England project is recording and representing aspects of the heritage significance of the ground. Fans, local residents and businesses are encouraged to get in touch via BoothamCrescent@HistoricEngland.org.uk.

A recent short film includes interesting insights into the ground and its history, including the tunnel behind the Popular Stand. The first film in the series is on this link, where you’ll also find others in due course, as more are planned and in production.

Tony Cole (whose excellent photos illustrated a piece I wrote some years back on King’s Square) has published a book, Home End. (More here.) I haven’t yet seen the book but I know that Tony has been taking photos in and around the ground for years now, and they’ve captured the spirit of the place beautifully, and poignantly. Like this one.

Photo: Tony Cole (Aug 2013, flickr.com)

. . . . .

It’s difficult to imagine the future of this piece of land with all those houses and cars on it. But we have to. And, as a neighbour of this ground, for 22 years, I have to think about the boring detailed bits like the height of the buildings proposed. I hope it’s not going to be like this.

. . . . .

www.yorkstories.co.uk has been online for quite a while. It’s a resident’s record of York and its changes, a personal perspective on the city of York, UK. These days this long-running internet thing of mine is added to somewhat sporadically, around other commitments/writer’s block/winter blues, etc. It’s still supported by your virtual coffees and appreciative words. Thank you.

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Aerial view of Bootham Crescent (Google)

After a walk in the park, and with a big sigh, I have to return to the subject mentioned as ‘breaking news’ a couple of weeks back — plans for the housing development at the football ground.

As I’ve previously mentioned, this is close to home and quite a difficult thing to cover, because of my awareness of the significance of it on many levels, but particularly to York City fans, and to some of us living close to the ground for a long time. Many layers of meaning and memory here at the city’s football ground.

But I certainly can’t ignore it. And there are many approaches to it, so let’s get on with it. Some aspects need highlighting as the cultural heritage of this site needs wider recognition, and there is an opportunity at present to send comments to the developer, Persimmon. Currently we’re in the ‘pre-application’ stage, before a planning application is submitted.

The consultation on 20 September was the standard thing developers are expected to do these days. As explained in Persimmon’s leaflet/feedback form:

City of York Council’s Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) recommends that developers undertake public consultation on major projects, such as this proposal, to inform the detail of the development prior to the submission of an application for planning permission.

This consultation is being undertaken in accordance with the Council’s SCI.

… Your comments will feed into the development of the scheme that will be submitted to the Council. We will produce a report which will form part of the planning application, and it will summarise the issues that you have raised with us during the consultation period.

It will set out any changes made to the proposals in response to your comments. If you suggest changes which cannot be accommodated the reason(s) for this will also be set out in the report.

The Persimmon feedback form also states that they ‘welcome your comments and suggestions for potential improvements to the scheme.’

These can be sent by email, by 11 October 2018 to:

yorkshire.land@persimmonhomes.com

2002, and now

Some readers, particularly if they’re fans of York City FC, may remember an earlier Persimmon planning application (ref 02/02212/FUL), back in 2002, during particularly bleak and grim times.

The documents aren’t available online, but I’ve been looking at photocopies. It’s interesting to see how the plans for the same site have changed, 16 years on.

As envisaged back then (2002)

In the 2018 plans, the entrance to the development has shifted, with the access road in a different place. Fewer houses/flats are proposed for the site. The proportion of houses to flats is very different. And the green space has shifted from a fairly central position to one side of the site.

Image of proposed housing development for Bootham Crescent football ground, from Persimmon, Sept 2018

Numbers, access road, green space

Compared to the planning application in 2002, fewer homes are proposed for the site: around 80 now, rather than the 93 back then. It does seem to be the case fairly often with planning applications that having got permission the developers go back and want to increase the number of dwellings, so ‘around 80′ might end up being more than that.

More interesting perhaps is that the number of apartments has been reduced considerably. Around 18 is my understanding, compared to 48 apartments in the 2002 plans. The apartment-building boom of the previous decade presumably provided enough apartments elsewhere in the city.

The other noticeable changes from the 2002 application are firstly, the placement of the access road, and secondly, the placement of the green space. The first of these might matter only to local residents around the ground. The green space is of more significance and interest, or should be, because this piece of land has always been green space of some kind, though the terracing and the stands and the car park have covered the edges of it over time.

In the 2002 plans, the green space proposed was more central, and looked like part of it might be where the pitch is currently. As the documents for that planning application said:

‘the central area of public open space will be laid out in the form of a square providing a focal point for the area and the local community.’
(Planning statement, July 2002)

In the 2018 proposals the green space has been positioned to the west side of the site, where the Popular Stand is (popularly known as the Pop Stand). The proposed green space extends to the football ground’s boundary with Duncombe Barracks, where there’s a line of mature trees very close to the back of the stand, on the barracks side of the boundary.

A representative from Persimmon told me that this relocation of the green space came from pre-application discussions with the council’s planning department.

The barracks site, owned by the MoD, is now surplus to requirements, and according to the city council’s website the council are interested in buying it for housing development. If it is also redeveloped for housing, a larger area of open space could be made around those mature trees. That appears to be the thinking. If so, and if leaving space around the trees means the remaining trees are kept, then that’s a good thing.

On the other hand, as I mentioned in an earlier page, it seems important to have at least some green space more centrally located in the new development, part of where the pitch has been for all these decades. Some kind of proper marker and recognition. It would be better if this recognition of the city’s sporting heritage wasn’t in the middle of someone’s front garden.

History, heritage

Football grounds like this aren’t like other bits of land. They have communal significance, deep meaning and memory, for generations of people. I think we all recognise that. Many generations of people have watched sporting events here. Including, recently, some very exciting rugby league games, when York City Knights have entertained a ‘bouncing Bootham Crescent‘ crowd.

So it has recently served as a rugby ground and for decades as a football ground, and before it was a football pitch it was a cricket pitch. From the thecardindex.com website, a couple of lovely images of this piece of land, back then.

‘Ye Olde Time Cricket Match. York. July 22.08.’ From thecardindex.com, on this link.

Source: thecardindex.com

Not cricket, but apparently a running race about to start, in what looks like the area that is now the football ground’s car park, with Newborough Street in the background.

And before it was a cricket pitch and sports ground it would have been fields … but there are no available photos of that. The distinctively shaped site is included on the 1852 map.

Whether as a wilder place or the carefully maintained grassland of a sports pitch, this piece of land has been green for centuries, but not for much longer.

Thoughts

Thinking about the planning application from 2002, looking at photocopies of it, reminds me of how close the football club was to losing its home back then. I think about how that was resolved, back then, and how Bootham Crescent was saved ‘for the foreseeable future‘. How resonant that phrase seemed at the time, and still does, though that future held a lot of things that weren’t foreseeable after all. And how ‘foreseeable’ ended up meaning a ten-year period, how ten years seemed like such a long time, and then ended up being longer than that, with the various delays to the building of the replacement stadium, out at Monks Cross.

A valuable piece of land, and it can be viewed in so many ways, as plans for its future become clearer. Residents might look at the plans for the site and think about the increased traffic, and parking problems, and the noise and dust from the demolition and the building site, and the usual concerns residents have when such changes are proposed close to their homes. Persimmon are there to build houses and make profit, and of course if it wasn’t them it would be another house builder. For many York City fans there’s a deep and significant sense of loss in this, a feeling of losing a home.

So — no actual planning application yet, in this ‘consultation’/pre-application stage — but if the above has inspired any thoughts on how this piece of land should look in the future then you might want to send them to yorkshire.land@persimmonhomes.com,  by 11 October 2018. Might be a good idea to put ‘Bootham Crescent’ as the subject, as that looks like a fairly generic email address. I suspect Persimmon own a lot of ‘yorkshire.land’.

. . . . .

It took a while to write this, to get the tone right, to get the facts in. It’s not fun, thinking about this. Please send coffees.

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Please keep any comments as calm and thoughtful as possible, in recognition of the fact that I created a page that was as calm and thoughtful as possible, and that this is my website, which is like an online home, of sorts. I’ll probably have to remove anything that’s too angry/derogatory about individuals/rude about Persimmon, so please do any sweary/angry/personally defamatory stuff on social media, not here. Thanks.

Update: Historic England project

In recognition of the heritage significance of the ground, Historic England has a project running at present led by heritage consultant Jason Wood. It will ‘explore what people value about the place and will consider how those memories might be captured for the future’. Fans and locals are urged to get in touch with Jason (jwhcs@yahoo.co.uk) with their memories of the ground and ideas for its re-development. There’s more information on the football club website. Thanks to Claire who alerted me to this project.

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So much going on in York, so many planning applications etc, but this week let’s escape into some gentle nostalgia, and head back to a time when Sutler’s bar was Army and Navy Stores and groups of football fans were ‘Specially Catered For’ in the local cafes.

Before it’s returned to its owner, I have permission to share with you these scans of a 1955 football programme. Which, as you can see, is signed by the players. It’s one of a pair of programmes from that year, from matches taking place in February and March 1955, a famous cup-run for York City Football Club. We’ve mentioned it before, when looking at a photo of the Gasworks Gang.

As well as a couple of names I recognised in the signatures on the front of the programme (Norman Wilkinson and Arthur Bottom) the other obvious thing is the ad for Army and Navy Stores. It sold ‘Beva’ boots, apparently famous and presumably different from ‘bovver’ boots.

The programme was printed at the Herald Printing Works.

There’s an advert for the Bootham Bar Cafe inside the front cover:

The nearest cafe to the football ground, with ‘Football Parties Specially Catered For’, it says. Also, I was surprised to see that there was a shop selling sports equipment at the top of Bootham Crescent. Anyone remember that?

There’s also an ad for that well-known York department store Leak and Thorp’s, selling not only the Wolsey X Front but the Cooper Y Front.

From adverts to the team info:

Different times, weren’t they. Norman Wilkinson, it tells us, is a ‘part-time player who works as a cobbler in his native County Durham’. Sidney Storey, another part-time player, is a miner at Darfield, near Barnsley.

Then more ads in the centre pages:

Many of the businesses advertising in this programme aren’t around now, but we see a familiar name on an ad inside the back cover, selling ‘Tools for all trades':

And alongside one of many adverts for booze a helpful list of York’s cafes and restaurants, in the days when there were far fewer of them.

On the back cover, a lady enjoys her Magnet Ale — apparently a half pint, in a ladylike glass.

. . . . .

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It was a particularly exciting one. Quite excited today also to find that there’s this short clip on YouTube, including the celebratory scenes after the game. ‘Wish I’d taken my camera’ I wrote in the diary. (Then I could have got a load of blurry photos of the backs of people’s heads, like I usually do …) This video is much better. It’s fab.

My ancient yellowing handwritten account covers a page and more of A4, and barely records the match itself as I found the crowd more interesting, particularly when at full time most of us invaded the pitch: ‘an amazing sight’.

Later we went to Exhibition Square for the open-top bus. The diary records a scene which (as the video also shows) was in many respects just like other victory parades by York City FC, like the one a couple of years ago. Though there’s a little period detail in there, recording and reminding me what 1984 felt like …

‘Everyone was lining the pavements, climbing on the walls, sitting on bus shelters, singing and abusing the police. Good atmosphere though – it wasn’t malicious abuse, just songs about “Maggie Thatcher’s black and white army”.’

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