Comments on: Ways of seeing … York

By: YorkStories

YorkStories — Sun, 28 Jul 2013 22:32:25 +0000

Thanks for your comments on this. There are so many angles to ‘what was York and where is it going’, it’s so vast and complex I think it needs another page, or many … am working on it …

By: Martyn

Martyn — Fri, 26 Jul 2013 10:30:07 +0000

Something has definitely changed in this city over the last few years and I’m struggling to work out what. It definitely changed an awful lot from 95 when I arrived to to the mid-noughties during the long boom period, with house prices skyrocketing. To give you an example a house we liked the look of in 1999 was just out of our then price range at 70k, it’s now on the market again at just under 240k. How we wish we’d found the money from somewhere! We could now afford it but you think to yourself…why pay so much for a relatively modest home ? Comparing house prices here with elsewhere in the country outside of London and its hinterland counties we’re always surprised with just how expensive it’s becoming to live here, there’s lots of the south which is more affordable including chocolate box parts of the West Country. The city certainly seems more gentrified, more touristified (new word?) and generally not quite as pleasant as it once was. Saturdays in the summer in York are really unpleasant with hordes of stags and hens everywhere. I speak to so many born and bred Yorkies who now say they rarely venture into town at all which strikes me as quite a sad state of affairs. I think the city has a choice between new housing and faster growth or a Winchester approach where growth is curtailed and the place the becomes a place where only the rich can afford to live. A very hard call - or maybe’s there’s a middle more pragmatic way ?

We’re going to be heading elsewhere within the next 18 months and it will be interesting to return in future years as an outsider to see how things have changed again.

By: P J KELLY

P J KELLY — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 22:08:54 +0000

Please don’t be taken in by the small builders who constantly write to the Press about the affordability quotas killing off housebuilding. It’s nonsense – ask the bigger builders what the problem is and they will all say lack of finance for housebuyers and shortage of available land. Its not profitability – look at the profits the big companies are reporting this year. York’s population grew by 18,000 net between 2001 and 2011 – throughout the recession years. It would have been more if there had been housing available for people from here who wanted to stay but couldn’t afford to. Not building means ever higher prices – that’s simply not fair on many families from York.
You are right about caution – but there isn’t a decent modern building in the city centre. There’s lots of modern rubbish but they are often the result of caution and compromise rather than letting a good architect do their stuff properly. Hilary House and Stonebow were built in the 60s and could be replaced by something with a bit more flair. But they won’t be if we don’t allow architects to design attractive buildings.

By: Drake

Drake — Wed, 17 Jul 2013 11:26:20 +0000

The idea is York as a Medieval Theme park.Camelot on Ouse.Who the hell thought we we could ever change from a manufacturing economy to a service economy ??

By: stephen

stephen — Wed, 17 Jul 2013 00:44:26 +0000

Mr Dorling may have seen what some of us in the midst of change,did not.I visited my home town often to wonder and gawp at the Viking Dig in Coppergate,when York had not only Railway Carriage building,and three kinds of sweet/chocolate making,at Rowntree ,Terry and Cravens,but also Vickers fine precision instruments,Ben Johnson and
Sessions printing works,Adams Hydraulics,the Glass works,Armstrong Patents car parts ,
Shepherd builders,and armament repair facility at Fulford,among others,all employing thousands of workers on full time 40 hour weeks,with attendant good wages,and satisfying spending power.
The Viking project,and exhibit,seems to have coincided with the influx of high earners,many of them possibly from the South East,rapidly pushing up house prices,and eroding the working class feel of the place , and introducing(your lovely description)
‘Gentrification’.It seems that this’alloying’of York folk with richer incomers,may have robbed the City of it’s gritty working class fighting spirit,
accepting ‘forelock tugging’ tourism,instead of fighting to either ,save what they already had,or better still get new industry installed where possible.
Darlington where I now live,when faced with the closure of their companion industry of Loco
building,fought hard to get new industry.They succeeded,one of which is diesel Engine making
to which I was head hunted from York,to help create a factory,from a green field ,to 2000 strong plant,on the outskirts of the town.

Wish it had been York!.