A man who conned three York businessmen out of £850,000 pleaded guilty to 13 counts of fraud at Southwark Crown Court this week.

His pleas follow a protracted enquiry by North Yorkshire Police’s Major Fraud Inquiry Team which began in 2009 following complaints by the owners of a York investment company.

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Predictably the Council Leader failed to give a convincing response when tackled at the last Council meeting about the “subsidy” he is considering making to the stalled Castle/Piccadilly development.

He was asked by the LibDem Leader, “On Castle/Piccadilly, would the Leader confirm precisely what form of “subsidy” he is considering making to the private sector to underwrite this project and would he say how such a subsidy could legally be made given EU procedural restrictions that exist?”

The response was that the negotiations were confidential and the results wouldn’t be revealed until they were concluded!

Worrying given that a lot of time and money can be wasted pursuing policies which are either impractical or illegal (or both).

It really is time to come clean on what deal is being talked about? If taxpayers are to be asked to foot the bill then transparency is essential at all stages of any negotiation.

The Leader displayed similar lack of candour when asked how he intended to ensure that York receives a fair share of the resources that the Government has made available for investment by the Leeds City Region Amalgamated Authority, how he intended to involve the people of York in the development of policy for the Authority and whether he would indicate whether he was planning to introduce a supplementary levy on the City’s Council Taxpayers to assist in funding the Authority’s work?”

The response was effectively that he had no idea how to measure the benefit that York residents would derive other than via a general improvement in “Gross Value Add”.

There will be no consultation with residents, the governance structure of the new joint authority remains unclear and he failed to rule out a surcharge on York Council Taxpayers to fund the new organisation!

With the summer holidays upon us, a range of activities for children can be found here http://www.yor-ok.org.uk/Shine/events/events.htm

It seems that the Councils claims to be promoting a new coach link to the airport from York have been exaggerated.

An express coach service to Leeds/Bradford Airport was first introduced in February 2007 offering a direct 55 minute duration trip to the airport at a fare of £15 return with an hourly frequency. The original route was from York Rail Station, via Upper Poppleton, St James Retail Park (Knaresborough), Weeton Station & Leathley Lane End and on to Leeds Bradford Int. Airport

Usage on the First service was very low and even re-routing the service to pick up passengers from Leeds failed to prevent it being abandoned a couple of years ago.

One of the main problems was the need to link feeder buses to the 24/7 service. Essential if holiday makers were to be attracted to what was promoted as a cheap alternative to car & taxi.

Currently the recommended public transport route is by a half hourly shuttle to Leeds railway station and then by train to York (not much more than an hours journey if you are lucky with connections)

At the last Council meeting the Leader indicated that a new service would be more frequent and suggested that the 55 minute journey time could be reduced. It remains unclear how this could be achieved without a massive investment in road improvements.

It also appears that the aspiration to provide a rail spur from the York/Harrogate/Leeds railway line to the airport has been quietly shelved.

The one piece of good news recently, for York’s air travellers, is the government’s decision to invest heavily in the trans-Pennine rail network which should substantially reduce journey times to Manchester airport.

The Council has started consultation on its plans for enhancements to the strategic cycle network.

The proposals are reproduced here.

The different coloured routes on the map represent the following:

Red routes – these are the ones which comprise the new proposed Strategic Network and those which have been prioritised on the spreadsheet.

Green Routes – these were included on the previous version of the strategic network (mid-90s) but are not proposed to be on the new one.

Yellow routes – these are the routes which were already in existence when the previous strategic network was adopted in the 90s.

Blue routes – these are the routes which have been built since the first strategic network was adopted and together with the yellow ones form the current built network.

Sadly it appears that critical links between Woodthorpe/Acomb Park/Foxwood and Acomb are being jettisoned along with the Acomb to Askham Bryan college link.

The Cross Street, in Acomb, anomaly in the existing network is not addressed (Cyclists are currently “dumped” onto the footpath on Front Street near the Pelican Crossing).

Surprisingly no provision is made for the much requested link to Rufforth. This was one of the benefits of developing a materials salvage and recycling centre at Harewood Whin. Part of the project would have involved providing an off road cycle path, possibly using the Grange Lane public footpath (bridle way) with a new bridge over the ring road. Now this proposal is being quietly forgotten?

Under the plans Westfield would lose more of its planned cycle network than any other ward…………. so not much change in policy there then!

We understand that the Council will be publishing the maps on their web site for the general public to feed back their comments (its not there yet as far as we can see). The closing date for getting comments back is 31st August “to give as many people as possible the opportunity to comment even though this is the summer holiday period”.

Once the Council has all the comments back from members, Parish Councils and the public they will review them and amend the map and prioritised list of schemes as appropriate. “The resulting map will then be put forward for formal adoption as the council’s blueprint for future cycle route provision and will then influence future development control and transport capital programme decisions”.