The quality and impact of the City Of York Council's Housing Delivery Programme has earned it two awards and approval to build 85 new zero-carbon homes.

The national Planning Awards 2022 named the programme Best Housing Scheme (Fewer than 500 homes), and highly commended the programme for the Design Excellence award. The Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) Yorkshire awarded the programme Excellence in Plan-Making. It will now be forwarded to the national RTPI awards later this year.

Alongside these awards, planning permission has now been granted to build 85 super energy-efficient, zero-carbon homes at the Hospital Fields Road/ Ordnance Lane site in Fishergate. At present, 40% of the homes are earmarked for a mixture of social rent and shared ownership with grant funding now being sought to increase this further. This is well in excess of planning policy requirements. The houses and apartments are designed to generous space standards which will support home working and accessibility. Each will have private outdoor space and there will be two new public green spaces where community growing can sit alongside car-free routes that connect to the wider neighbourhood. The plans also include indoor community spaces and work spaces. The Victorian ‘Married Quarters’ building will be kept and retrofitted to very high thermal comfort standards, and will be converted into an innovative intergenerational apartment building with community space.

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The judges for the RTPI Yorkshire award said: "City of York Council's Housing Delivery Programme sets the bar incredibly high: a programme, underpinned by its Design Manual, has not only sustainable and environmental credentials but puts local residents and businesses front and centre. People with special needs, less affluent people, families and elderly people all can incredibly benefit from living at Burnholme, Duncombe and Ordnance Lane."