English Heritage is planning to dig under York’s most iconic of locations, the 12th-century Clifford’s Tower, and build a visitor centre, but the fight to stop the works is to go to the high court.
At the same time campaigners fighting the new visitor centre at Clifford’s Tower are calling on English Heritage to abandon its plans and sign up to an alternative vision for the area. They say the charity should scrap its proposal to build the centre into the mound at the foot of the tower. Instead they should work with City of York Council on the new vision for the Castle Gateway site unveiled last month.
The £2.5m proposal went through the council’s consultation period in January 2016 when the city was engaged in cleaning up after a devastating set of floods and after a crowdfunded challenge by independent city councillor, Johnny Hayes, that planning process is subject to a judicial review at the high court. Hayes said: ‘In every way this proposal is wrong. When I heard it, I thought it was a bad joke.’
The planned changes, drawn up by London-based architects Hugh Broughton, are to revamp the interior of the tower, an area that most people agree has been a disappointment to visitors, and create a covered spiral walkway that will reveal parts unseen. It is the plan for the gift shop and interpretation centre, embedded under the mound, which has aroused local opposition, including a 3,780-signature petition.
Jeremey Ashbee, head curator at English Heritage said: ‘The section of the mound we will use was put there in the 19th century – it’s not original. .And with this project, we have a chance to tell the Clifford’s Tower story properly.’
See more on the plans and more on the new ‘Vision’
Read more in The Guardian and see YorkMix below
https://www.yorkmix.com/news/cliffords-tower-campaigners-call-english-heritage-back-new-vision-castle-area/
