YORK is a fantastic city, mixing ancient history with modern ideas. But the city today could have been very different - for better or for worse.

Here are 13 big ideas for York from the past, that came to nothing.... (so far at least)...

Which should have been adopted? Which should be revived? Which were we lucky to avoid? Share your thoughts below....

1 - Forget Lendal Bridge... Back in 2003, city leaders unveiled plans for this - a new footbridge from North Street Gardens and Guildhall, at an estimated cost of £2 million.

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2 - Older readers may remember the spectacular plan for York unveiled in 1971, which included roundabouts galore, new bridges and a road on stilts behind York Station. Oh yes, and the demolition of around 300 houses in the process.

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4 - That wasn't the first radical road plan for York. This huge scale model of the city, photographed in 1969, looks largely accurate at first glance. But look at the foot of the picture and you'll see an early vision of a ring road for York, sweeping across the south of the city-centre, including a huge new bridge just south of the Blue Bridge, and a vast new roundabout obliterating much of Fishergate, including seven lanes of traffic at the approach.

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4 - Chimney plan up in smoke - Supermarket giant Morrisons got short shrift when they asked to emblazon their name all the way down the landmark chimney beside their shop in Foss Islands Road. York councillor Brian Watson said it was "without doubt the silliest idea he had ever heard of".

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5 - The monorail - In June 1998, as shops at Monks Cross opened, plans for a monorail ferrying shoppers between the edge of the city and the centre were revealed. It was suggested it would cost around £6.5 million.

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6 - Another idea in the sky. Balloonist Per Lindstrand wanted to give residents and tourists unprecedented views of York, through a tethered balloon that would rise 400 ft above the city centre. He hoped to have it operational by Christmas 2006. In the end, the plans remained up in the air.

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7 - The Big Wheel has caused no end of debate in York. Remember the plans to put it at North Street Gardens?

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8 - How about the plans to put it behind York Art Gallery?

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9 - York Station has undergone changes - but not on the scale proposed here. Back in 2007, GNER revealed it wanted to create ten new shops in the concourse, a new first-floor development and a new entrance.

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10 - The new council headquarters at West Offices have won design and conservation awards. The original plans drew derision. This is the building the council wanted to build at Hungate, behind the Black Swan pub. 

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11 - A planetarium - This 1986 sketch shows plans for Wellington Row (where the Aviva offices now stand). The glass-topped building on the right would have been a planetarium, with a cinema and hotel alongside.

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12 - Britain's biggest cinema screen - Two years later, on the same site, the plans had been changed. Now, developers envisaged a 118-bedroom hotel, a giant food hall and a multi-screen cinema, with the biggest screen in Britain.

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13 - York's own Pompidou Centre - The image below was the winning entry in a 1986 design competition for Queen's Staith. The new Queen's Hotel actually stands here, alongside Missoula bar and apartments. This glass and steel structure was described as futuristic and compared to the Pompidou Centre - but on the very day it was unveiled, York's planning chief Albert Cowen said it would never get off the ground in this design.

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14 - Up up and...  Three years earlier, this was the plan for the same site. Developers unveiled this image in the Evening Press, showing plans for a glass-fronted offices with a roof-top restaurant. 

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