Walmgate: £967,300 Plan Decided 8 Sept, Have Your Say by 4th

York councillors will decide the South Walmgate Masterplan on Tuesday 8 September, signing off a first phase of work paid for by £967,300 of housing, transport and mayoral money.

Residents who want a say have until 5pm on Friday 4 September. That deadline is on the agenda for the meeting, not in the council’s announcement of the plan.

The decision goes to item 6 of the Combined Executive Member Decision Session on Tuesday 8 September at 10am at West Offices, where it is listed as the Walmgate Improvement Scheme. The officer report was written on 17 August by Ben Murphy, the council’s City Head of Place Shaping and Growth, and Tania Weston, regeneration programme manager. It asks members to approve the final masterplan, approve the phase 1 project list, and start procurement for the design and delivery teams.

The whole area sits in Guildhall ward.

Where the £967,300 comes from

The report sets out three separate pots, each with its own rules and its own spending deadline:

• £500,000 from the Local Transport Grant, accepted from the York and North Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority in November 2025. It must be spent by March 2027.
• £250,000 from the Housing Revenue Account, approved at a decision session on 27 January 2026. Because of the HRA ringfence, it can only be spent on council housing land and buildings, for the benefit of council tenants.
• £217,300 of Vibrant High Streets funding, awarded by the combined authority in May 2026 for the Medway House shopping parade. It must be spent by December 2027.

The council’s own announcement described this as “nearly £1 million”. The report puts the Vibrant High Streets award at £217,300, and names the Vibrant and Sustainable High Streets Fund run by Mayor David Skaith as the source.

If members refuse the plan, the report says the combined authority money “would need to be returned to the MCA”.

What phase 1 actually buys

The masterplan runs to eight themes and 13 projects. Only six items are in the first phase, chosen because they are affordable inside the grant deadlines:

• junction improvements for pedestrians and cyclists, which the report says may need a revised Traffic Regulation Order
• public realm work outside the Medway House shopping parade, including improved accessibility
• security work, stopping up cut-throughs
• a communally managed garden scheme
• a heritage trail
• potential public art

The £250,000 housing money is aimed at anti-social behaviour, through new lighting, security gates and closing off unsafe passageways. The report is explicit that it “will not be used for building repair tasks”, which come from general repairs budgets instead.

The council’s own consultants report frustration

The masterplan itself was drawn up by architects Mikhail Riches and published as Annex C to the report. Its closing section is blunt about how the last five years have landed locally.

Work with the South Walmgate community started in 2021. The document says that by 2025 the message “has now become a clear call for action”, and that despite repeated engagement events “there is concern that these efforts have not yet translated into visible improvements on the ground”. It records “particular disappointment that the condition of public and green spaces, as well as the timeliness of responses to community enquiries, has deteriorated”.

Two unattributed resident comments are printed in the document:

“I believe people now need to see genuine action and follow-through before re-engaging.”

“I don’t walk through the estate after dark and tell my daughters to do the same.”

The consultants list four things needing “more urgent attention”: public space and streetscape to council standards, better maintenance and response times, physical work on safety and security, and a community meeting space on Walmgate Parade.

The 36 homes already have permission

The masterplan sits alongside the redevelopment of the former Willow House care home at 34 Long Close Lane, YO10 4UP.

That scheme is not waiting on next week’s decision. Application 25/02537/FULM covers 36 homes with open space, landscaping, access and parking, following demolition of the care home and garage blocks. The planning register records it going to committee on 7 May 2026, with permission issued on 18 May 2026 and running to 18 May 2029.

Two condition applications have followed. AOD/26/00193, on arboricultural supervision and a bat licence, was validated on 20 July and has been decided. AOD/26/00204, on archaeology, was validated on 31 July and is still awaiting a decision.

The council says it has appointed a contractor to demolish the Willow House buildings, and that it is working to secure ownership of a small number of brick stores and garages. It says the Executive will be asked to approve preparatory work supporting the possible use of compulsory purchase powers. Any actual compulsory purchase order would be a separate decision later.

What it means for you

If you live in South Walmgate, both routes into this decision shut at 5pm on Friday 4 September:

• To write in. The agenda says written representations on items should go to Democratic Services by that time.
• To speak at the meeting. Registration closes two working days beforehand, which is the same 5pm on Friday 4 September. You register at york.gov.uk/AttendCouncilMeetings.

If you would rather just watch, the session is due to be webcast live and on demand at york.gov.uk/webcasts, subject to resources.

After the decision the next window is the call-in period. Councillors have until 4pm on Wednesday 16 September to call the decision in, which would send it to the Corporate Scrutiny Committee.

Two things worth knowing if you are reading the paperwork. The report’s own header gives its meeting date as 9 September, while the agenda it appears on is the 8 September session, so check the meeting page rather than the report cover. And the equalities section of the published report stops mid-sentence at “The initial findings suggest”, with the assessment itself carried in Annex A.

Nothing here changes bin days, parking or council tax in the area. For those, see our guides to York bin collection days, parking in York and York council tax bands. Other live schemes are tracked on our York planning news page.

Sources: City of York Council’s announcement of 28 August 2026, the Walmgate Improvement Scheme decision report and its annexes, and the council’s planning register, all read on 30 August 2026.