The Council have revealed some of their plans for the £28 million infrastructure fund set up in its budget. £20 million of this is money which will be borrowed increasing the annual interest burden on taxpayers by around £1.8 million (or equivalent to a 4% tax increase).
Against that background, residents might have hoped that the money would be invested to either reduce the council’s costs or to increase its income.
But in reality neither is likely to be the case. It is planning to spend £430,000 employing 2 new officers to administer the fund over the next 5 years.
Apart from tarting up City centre bus stops (at a cost of £2.5 million), the Council expects taxpayers to stump up for a City centre WiFi network and spend more on broadband provision. Both are projects that the telecoms companies should lead on with most customers expecting to have to pay for such services.
There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that migrant businesses would choose York as a base because “free” WiFi access is available on Coney Street!
The Council remains obsessed by spinning a populist line. It celebrates the demise of the ftr project (and 20 conductor jobs) and the closure of its branch office in Acomb. It tries to hide the 56% reduction in highways maintenance expenditure and pretends that the outrage, over the closure of the Beckfield Lane recycling centre, is some sort of inevitable consequence of the national economic situation.
Having pandered to the populist notion that the Clifton Green junction was a model of free flowing traffic prior to the introduction of the cycle lane, Labour now finds that it must either jettison its election promise to scrap the lane or it must ignore the advice of the emergency services – and the majority of consultees – and introduce a system markedly more dangerous than exists there now.
Will Councillors accept liability for any increase in accident numbers at a remodelled junction? We don’t think so.
What next in the populist stakes?
Well moving the market onto Parliament Street has been a clarion call for many years. Costs, and frankly the view that such a public space could be more imaginatively used – have inhibited such a change in the past.
But like a school boy with £5 to spend in a sweet shop, it may be a case of lets find some thing to spend £28 million on.
