Time to get to grips with local issues

The easing of lockdown restrictions offers the Council an opportunity to try to restore public service standards at least to the level seen in previous, pre-pandemic, years.

Some services are under particular pressure with potholes taking far too long to fill in.

*Potholes in Ashford Place, reported several months ago, have still not been filled*

Similarly estate management standards have fallen. At this time of year a regular checks needs to be made to ensure that roads and paths are not blocked and that access road surfaces are kept clear of moss and detritus.

*Access roads need to be kept free of obstructions*

One of the reasons for the decline may be the failure of the Council to fill three of its Housing Management posts. These are the posts that manage individual Council housing estates. They are very much the public face of the Council in their local neighbourhoods.

At least one of the posts has been vacant since last year.

Yet it does not appear among the 57 job vacancies currently being advertised by the Council, none of which are in the housing department. City of York Council Jobs (click)

*Simon Daubeney clean up at Foxwood shops*

Lack of budget cannot be an excuse for inaction . The housing account makes a surplus of several million pounds each year.

Elsewhere, local Councillor Simon Daubeney undertook a welcome clean up at the Foxwood shops on Saturday.

He will have found and reported the overturned salt bin.

The area has been subject recently to increased levels of vandalism.

The residents association have suspended maintenance of the planters following damage to the plants.

A Great British Spring Clean litter pick is scheduled to take place on Saturday 12th June.

Meet at 10:30am at the Foxwood Community Centre.

The walk round will last for about an hour.

Highways repairs – Ward plans published

One of the positive actions taken by the present Council was its decision to delegate to local Ward Councillors a budget to be spent repairing local roads and footpaths.

The Councils main repairs budget – which is inadequate to maintain standards – is focused on the busiest highways.

Some sub-urban roads haven’t been resurfaced for over 60 years.

Against that background, local Councillors have found it increasingly difficult to justify to local residents the growing number of potholes and ruts often found on local roads.

In 2019, they were given a modest “pot” which could be used to address the worst of the complaints.

It has taken a long time for the programme to get going, but now a series of “decisions” on how the funding will be spent are finding their way on to the Councils web site.

It has to be said that the process is largely impenetrable with no central schemes list being updated (and viewable by residents).

The latest list of proposals covers several wards. The investment decisions are likely to be of more interest to local taxpayers than many more high profile issues which seem to exercise the Councils media relations team.

In Westfield, the local Councillors have opted to allocated £20,000 towards the repair of back lanes in the Beaconsfield Street, Milner Street and Gladstone Street area.

They are right to do so.

A resurfacing programme, which was started some 20 years ago, stalled leaving the lanes very uneven and with a patchwork appearance. The lanes are mostly paved with traditional setts. These are very hard wearing but hugely expensive to relay.

We suspect that the available budget will allow only the worst of the uneven stretches of lane to be resurfaced probably using a bitmac overlay.

One other consequence is likely to be that the poor condition of the main highways in the area will become more apparent. School Street has been a particular embarrassment for some years.

*Back lanes and carriageways are in poor condition in parts of Acomb.*

Hopefully more funding will be found for the resurfacing of minor roads in future years.

Road repairs programme for York finally published – mixed news.

The programme of repairs to York’s highways network, that will take place during 2021/22, has finally been published. The programme is usually agreed in February. Work has already started on some of the listed schemes.

There is some mixed news in the report which was approved at a “behind closed doors” meeting apparently held on 23^rd April.

The highways maintenance programme (which includes not just carriageway and footpath repairs but also drainage, street lighting, City Walls, flood alleviation etc,) is one of the services which most interest residents, the programme has been delegated for officer determination for some years. Thus, the reports are not subject to scrutiny and alternative ways of allocated the budget are not publicly debated.

One key sentence in the report sums up the dilemma faced by the Council.

“Notwithstanding previous levels of investment the current funding levels are not sufficient to keep all our assets in their current condition”.

In effect, the Council has decided to focus resurfacing works on busy roads. Most side roads are being left to crumble.

Some work scheduled for 20/21, including the whole of the micro patching programme in Woodthorpe, has been delayed into the current financial year.

There is some good news.

Several long term problem locations in west York, including parts of Foxwood Lane, Askham Lane near the A1237 intersection, The Green, Bradley Lane near Rufforth, the low numbered end of Gale Lane and Thanet Road are scheduled to be resurfaced this year.

But there is no allocation for repairs on School Street and the surrounding area behind the Front Street shops, nor at many other sub-urban locations.

No footpaths in the Westfield area will be resurfaced.

There is no mention in the programme of the repairs needed to off-road cycle track infrastructure nor is there any listing of how the £1 million delegated “ward budgets” will be spent.

£877,000 of the latter budget, due to be invested last year, is being carried over into the current year. At the very least residents should be given the opportunity to influence how that section of the budget is spent.

All in all its seems that the decline in maintenance standards is set to continue for another year.

No sign of York Council road repairs programme

Although the new financial year starts today, there is still no sign of the York Councils road resurfacing programme for 2021/22.

The plan is usually published in March prior to going though an approvals process.

In recent years the allocation of the budget has been delegated to officers at the authority with any decision meetings held behind closed doors.

*Beech Grove in Acomb – One of many carriageways needing repairs*

The Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) survey has however been published.

The study examines the scale – and potential costs – of delayed road maintenance schemes across the country.

York Council to cut 20% from highway maintenance

A response to a Freedom of Information request has revealed that the Council intends to spend 20% less on repairing roads and footpaths in the City during 2021/22 compared to the current year.

The decision will come as a disappointment to many drivers and pedestrians and will be a particular blow for cyclists, many of whom have criticised the rapidly declining quality of local highway surfaces.

Highway maintenance is one of the expenditure areas in the Council where essentially you get what you pay for. So less money inevitably means that fewer paths and carriageways will be resurfaced.

*There has been widespread criticism of highway maintenance standards in York*

The Council will announce shortly what proportion of the budget it will spend on reactive pothole filling rather than, longer lasting, patching and resurfacing schemes.

Sources at the Council have criticised inconsistent central government funding allocations – such as the annual so called “pot hole” fund – which make long term investment planning difficult. A late announcement of funding for the resurfacing of Tadcaster Road came only weeks after the work had been completed using local taxpayers money (and is now being done again).

However, there will also be concern that some money has been taken from the maintenance budget to fund other projects. Several new schemes, such as rural cycle routes, are sucking funds from the budgets needed to repair existing cycle paths..

The Council has never recovered from the major reductions made to highways funding some 8 years ago.

Successive administrations have failed to find ways of returning investment levels to those seen earlier in the century.

It is estimated that the backlog in maintenance work nationally would require investment of around £11 billion to rectify.

Road repairs backlog grows

The backlog of requests for patching and resurfacing of roads in York seems to be growing.

*Officials have refused to fill in potholes like these on The Gallops*

Requests for potholes to be filled and uneven roads repaired are now being routinely turned down.

The risks for cyclists and pedestrians are rising.

Even when officials decide that some work is needed only rudimentary work is done to potholes. They usually require attention again within a few weeks.

*Requests for resurfacing receive no satisfactory response*

The very least that officials and responsible Councillors should do is explain their policies, what is possible within existing budget allocations and when residents can reasonably expect to see an improvements.

Some pretty bad mistakes seem to have been made when the allocation of basic maintenance budgets was agreed.

Councillors seem oblivious to the growing chorus of complaints.

This issue is an election loser if ever there was one

NB. The resurfacing programme for the new financial year should be published shortly

Good work by York Council in tacking blocked paths

It looks like the York Council may be getting the message over problems with obstructed cycle and footpaths.

Last year Millfield Lane near Poppleton was overgrown with vegetation making social distancing unnecessarily difficult.

Today workers were out cutting the obstructions back.

We hope that an audit of similar problem locations will result in action to prevent a reoccurrence of the problems this summer.

Wetherby Road closed on Monday evening

Wetherby Road will be closed to allow resurfacing work to take place on the evening of the 8th March 2021.

The Council have been working on removing a traffic island located near to the junction with The Green

Road works set to continue on Tadcaster Road

Road users face several more months of congestion on one of York’s main arterial routes.

We commented on Friday that it seemed that gas main works at Micklegate Bar would not be finished by todays deadline.

Gas main replacement work on Tadcaster Road 27th February 2021

Further down the route gas main laying is edging forward but with no end in sight.

Work at the St Helens Road junction is due to start tomorrow.

Now the Council has said that it will also start drainage testing, cleaning and improvement works on the section from the A64 to the Askham Bar roundabout.

The work is expected to last for 5 weeks. (This is the section of carriageway which wasn’t resurfaced last year). Most of the work is expected to take place in the late afternoon or overnight.

When this work is completed, works are planned for the section between Askham Bar and Blossom Street.

The improvements are expected to cost around £5 million.

While we think that the Council is right to get as much work done, on well used roads, while traffic levels are relatively low, we are not convinced that the last years work, and this years projects, could not have been better coordinated.

Limited progress on pothole repairs

Of six highway defects reported on Saturday, the Council has agreed to address only two of them.

Further work is promised on Gladstone Street and School Street.

Elsewhere it seems there is no prospect of repairs on Walker Drive, Vincent Way, Hotham Avenue or Lowfields Drive

Lowfields Drive – Council won’t fill in potholes

The Council seems to be no closer to bitmacing the small section of verge on Kingsway West, near Newbury Avenue, which has been subject to overrun damage for over 5 years now