The Council report on the proposed sale of the Councils Hungate site to a developer – who has lined up Hiscox as one of its end users – has now been published.

It produces more questions than answers.

The actual tenders received for the land are not being revealed by the Council.

Part of the reason for the coyness may that the EU has been cracking down on state subsidies for private business. Councils are subject to these restrictions.

On the face of it, the Council leadership is proposing to do just that by selling off a site for less than its market value and not to the highest tenderer. The receipt will fall short of the aspirational value of £5 million which would have been achieved when the economy picked up.

The Council officer report http://tinyurl.com/Hungate-sale-Oct-2012 reveals that they currently value the site at £3.77 million. This is lower than the aspirational value but is still more than the cost of acquiring the ambulance station part of the site in 2007 (The Haymarket car park and Peasholme building were already owned by the Council).

The report admits that the Councils capital programme – which includes the madly imprudent £20 million “Economic Infrastructure Fund (EIF)” – has assumed a £3.8 million receipt from the site. If there is no sale, then that will mean more borrowing, with income of £90,000 a year required from taxpayers to service every £1 million borrowed.

Borrowing to finance the EIF is set to cost taxpayers £1.8 million a year in debt charges.

The Council was under no pressure to sell. The site brings in £150,000 a year in parking fees. If the car park were extended to include the former ambulance station site, then that income would increase to £300,000 a year – more than enough to pay off the annual principal and interest payments on any capital borrowed to acquire the site in the first place.

This is a highly desirable City centre site. It will certainly increase in value. Virtually every piece of land bought by the Council over the last 3 centuries has soared in value in the medium term.

So why not be patient?

The answer, sucked in by a gullible media earlier this week, was that “up to” 300 additional jobs could be created. The multiplier effect of the income that these jobs generated would help to stimulate the local economy.

That is true. But it is also true of virtually any other type of investment anywhere in the City (The Monks Cross 2 project will create over 600 jobs).
….and there are other development sites in the City that are stalled. Several are within a stones throw of the Councils Hungate site.

The real reason is that the present Council were desperate to record any kind of economic gain that they could claim was down to their efforts. As it happens the developer probably did 99% of the work …..but they won’t let that get in the way of a little political spin!

All the other projects that are coming to fruition – everything from the Community Stadium through to the Sports Village at Heslington – had their genesis in the previous LibDem administration.

All Labour have to show for their efforts over the last 18 months are a string of cuts to the quality of public services in the City.

They badly needed a tangible success.

………..but there is still the issue of planning permission to be addressed. The developer is unlikely to complete the deal until permission has been granted. Early drawings of what is proposed suggest that this will not be a “shoo in”.

One option available to the Council would be to advertise the site on the open market. That would be the only true way to establish its current value. Clearly isn’t going to happen now.

The scale of the gamble being taking will only become clear to taxpayers when the Councils accounts are published at the end of the year. The size of the capital receipt will be revealed then.

If it is significantly less than the current (independent) valuation then it will be another nail in the coffin of an administration that has established new record levels of imprudence and economic naivety.

The Council Leader wrote to the local newspaper yesterday thanking workers and the emergency services for their efforts last week.

He was right to do so.

Council staff from Hazel Court pulled out all the stops to prevent what otherwise would have been a real catastrophe for several business and home owners on the City.

But he also wanted to emphasise his personal contribution to alleviating the flooding. There he would be wiser to have stayed silent.

There were very obvious failing of leadership in the City last week, particularly on Monday and Tuesday. By then it was already clear that record levels of water were entering the Ouse tributaries. It was a vital 48 hours in which advice could have been issued to those in areas likely to be affected. Modern technology means that flyers can be printed in minutes and – particularly in areas of terraced housing – delivered to each residence and business in less than an hour. Local Councillors should have been at the forefront of this communications exercise but was Wednesday – and too late – before they appeared to “inspect” problems.

During Monday and Tuesday the council issued only 2 media releases. One assured residents that the Council Leader was visiting the Veritau organisation (which investigates housing fraud) while another urged residents to stop smoking.

The Council Leader showed incredible insensitivity by devoting his time to making a You Tube video of the flooding in Leeman Road, assuring viewers that 2 Councillors had been in the area all night. (Not entirely surprising as they both live there).

So what went wrong apart from the PR void?

There is emerging evidence that the City was caught on the back foot with inadequate supplies of sandbags readily available in the Skeldergate area (at least).

The Council needs to undertake a candid review of its performance while both the Environment Agency (excellent web site) and Yorkshire Water (responsible for surface water drainage) need to explain to residents how flood protection will be improved in the future.

Generally the local media came out of the episode with some credit. Their web pages were kept up to date and clearly they, at least, had worked out that record water levels at Gouthwaite on the Monday meant major issues in York later in the week.

Shame that, amongst all the doom and gloom sensationalism, the media gave – for 24 hours – the impression that the whole City was coming to a halt.

That was never the case, so we then saw frantic efforts made later in the week to assure visitors that “York was open for business”.

A lot of lessons need to be learned from this episode in York’s history.

Tech support scams

Cybercriminals might call you on the telephone and claim to be from companies such as Microsoft.

They might offer to help solve your computer problems or sell you a software license.

However, once they have access to your computer, they can do the following:
•Trick you into installing malicious software that could capture sensitive data, such as online banking user names and passwords. They might also then charge you to remove this software.
•Take control of your computer remotely and adjust settings to leave your computer vulnerable.
•Request credit card information so they can bill you for phony services.
•Direct you to fraudulent websites and ask you to enter credit card and other personal or financial information there.

Neither Microsoft nor their partners make unsolicited phone calls (also known as cold calls) to charge you for computer security or software fixes.

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