According to European Parliament LibDem Leader Fiona Hall, Yorkshire MEP Diane Wallis has resigned.

There are no “by elections” in the Euro Parliament world, so another candidate – from further down the LibDem party list – would automatically be allocated the seat.

The Council published the agenda for today’s Planning Committee meeting “on line” at around 10:00am this morning.

That’s 17 hours after the registration deadline for residents wishing to speak at the meeting!

There is an important item on the agenda relating to the plans to build a hotel next to the Barbican.

Officials are recommending that the application be refused. They claim the building is too big but apparently choose to forget that a hotel formed an essential part of the original Barbican development brief.

The hotel would provide vital services such as break out rooms and restaurant facilities which would help the Barbican auditorium to attract conference business to the City.

Without it the future of the Barbican would be at risk.

Still there’s little danger of any resident turning up to make representations at today’s meeting … the registration deadline is long gone!

click to enlarge

Housing Associations will be building more homes for rent over the next 4 years in the City. 158 homes have been approved with the bulk (99) going to the exemplar Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust.

The homes are in addition to those previously approved such as the Derwenthorpe development.

The Government is providing a grant of £22K per home.

The allocations are not for specific sites so the location of the new units will be decided over the next few months

Tenants will be charged an “affordable rent” for the property. This could mean around £420 – £480 per month for a 3 bedroomed home. These are higher than the “social rents” which apply to Council homes and existing Housing Association tenancies.

However, less well of tenants will qualify for housing benefit.

The higher rents produce income which goes towards paying off the money borrowed to finance building costs.

Most Housing Association relets are likely to be at the new “affordable rent “level. This is usually set at between 60% and 80% of the market rent. Only around 60 properties each year will be affected by this change which does not apply to existing tenancies.

The York Council is likely to cap “affordable” rent levels, on 3 bedroomed properties provided under Section 106 agreements, at 55% of the market rent.