The recent announcement that the Turf Tavern on Thanet Road will close at Christmas will disappoint many.
What most don’t realise is that the Council held a restrictive covenant on the use of the building. This could have been used to protect the site.
Apparently on Tuesday (26th) the new cabinet member for City Strategy (Dave Merrett) agreed to waive this covenant paving the way for the demolition of the pub and the erection of housing on the site.
What is scandalous is that there was no consultation on the question of the use of the covenant and no item was placed on any public agenda prior to Tuesdays decision.
This drift into secrecy and political spin is sadly now part of a trend that we are seeing in York.
Councillors are now “authoring” the reports that inform the council’s decision making process. A key annex in the report on Union Terrace has not been made available to even Opposition Councillors; a clear change in policy since the May elections.
This has apparently been facilitated by the Councils Audit and Governance committee – which is charged with looking after taxpayer’s interests – who on 26th July scrapped the Councils report writing protocol altogether.
This was an agreement that had secured all party endorsement only 3 years ago.
Earlier the protocol, which prevented the inclusion of comment from Labour Councillors in the Councils media releases and publications, had been relaxed.
Worse the Governance committee has also now scrapped a whole range of other protocols which were established to protect residents from the worst excesses of a failing Council.
Important amongst those scrapped was one protecting “whistle blowers”. This gave officers some protection if they chose to make an irregularity public.
The connection between secret deals and pressure on professional officers to conform is not too difficult to fathom.