Only the receipt of a new home bonus of £714,000 prevented the York Council from outurning with a budget deficit during the last financial year. The windfall contribution turned a £365k loss into a £349k surplus.

The new homes bonus, which is intended to encourage local authorities to promote now house building and reduce the number of vacant properties, is calculated each October.

In York the Council Tax base at October 2011 showed an increase of 751 occupied properties compared to the previous years figure.

These included 266 affordable units.

This brought the total number of occupied properties in the City to 85,526.

Only 180 empty homes were recorded.

The Council will continue to receive £714K in annual bonus for the next 6 years. In addition, £1.1m in additional bonus for the current and successive financial years will be payable.

Whatever the present Council may claim, it made little or no contribution towards qualification for the new homes bonus.

Without the bail out, and the benefit of lower borrowing costs, the Council could have been is serious financial difficulty.

The draft accounts show a massive £1.5 million overspend on care services.

NB. The government web site http://www.communities.gov.uk/housing/housingsupply/newhomesbonus/ describes the New Homes Bonus as “a powerful, simple and transparent incentive that means that those local authorities which promote and welcome growth can share in the economic benefits, and build the communities in which people want to live and work.
The Government provides additional funding or a ‘bonus’ for new homes by match funding the additional council tax raised for new homes and empty properties brought back into use, with an additional amount for affordable homes, for the following six years. The New Homes Bonus is based on past increases in housing supply”

City of York Council’s library service is celebrating this week by opening the UK’s first library reading café.

Set in award-winning Rowntree Park, the library will form part of the new reading cafe, an extension of the citywide Explore brand, which places emphasis on providing high quality food, a welcoming, relaxed atmosphere and flexible spaces to host different activities and events. The reading café will be staffed with a small team and the council will recruit two apprentices to work there. Income generated by café sales will fund the facility.

The council’s library services are bucking the national trend by opening a new facility when funding cuts are forcing closures elsewhere. Situated in a newly-renovated Edwardian tea shop in the city’s award-wining Rowntree Park, the 21st century, self-funded reading café with free wi-fi will open on the day the park celebrates its 91st birthday on 14 July 2012 with a traditional party and community fair.

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