Credit Union – tell people the facts!

The agenda for the York Council’s Cabinet meeting on Tuesday includes an item about the York and North Yorkshire Credit Union.

It is marked as “secret” with absolutely no explanatory papers made available for the public.

It is time for the Council – which originally sponsored the York Credit Union – to come clean about its future and explain why it has gone bust.

Depositors and creditors deserve to be kept in the picture. If there were any problems then the Council should have intervened long before now. (The Council had representation on the Board of the Credit Union together with some investments.)

The FCCS have issued the following statement http://www.fscs.org.uk/news/2012/november/youre-protected-fscs-t-jv27rs211/

“You’re protected, FSCS tells thousands of North Yorkshire Credit Union members

Thousands of North Yorkshire Credit Union members, which went bust today, will get their money back within the next week, says the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). It’s stepping in to protect members of the credit union which has locations throughout Yorkshire.

FSCS protects consumers when authorised financial services firms fail. It has protected more than 4.5m people and paid out more than £26bn in compensation since 2001. It is pledging to pay back the credit union’s members within seven days. And it won’t take long. On average FSCS pays out in a few days.

The FSCS process is automatic. Members of the credit union will not need to lift a finger to get their money back. FSCS will use the credit union’s records to automatically send payments to members. FSCS protects savings up to £85,000.
People with less than a thousand pounds will receive a letter to get cash over the counter at the Post Office. Anyone with more than this will receive a cheque. This gives people their cash back quickly and gives them the most options for depositing it elsewhere, FSCS says.

About 5,000 savers have some £1.9m in North Yorkshire Credit Union.

Kate Bartlett, Director of Operations, says: “FSCS is protecting members of the North Yorkshire Credit Union. There is no cause for concern. We will get your savings back to you within one week. And you won’t need to lift a finger because the process is automatic.”

Answers to questions can be found by clicking here: http://tinyurl.com/Credit-union-Q-A

Homeless birds given boost in Foxwood

Lord Mayor solving housing crisis

Foxwood Residents Association and Foxwood in Bloom held a successful bird box making event yesterday with the Lord Mayor of York and the Civic Party getting into the spirit of the event.

It wasn’t exactly “the sound of music” coming from Foxwood Community Centre – more like “if I had a hammer” as everyone bashed in nails to make the perfect nesting box for robins and blue tits

£1.6 million market spending ignores Acomb’s needs

Predictably the Council has decided to spend another £1.6 million on “refurbishing” the market in Newgate. A report outlining their plan was published last week – several hours before a “consultation” exercise on the future of the market was due to finish.

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Clearly the Council had already decided what it would do and the consultation was just a smokescreen.

The Council sees the specialist markets in Parliament Street continuing and hopes to re-coop some of its investment through increased stall rental income.

We think that the Council is right to make improvements to the City market.

The scale of the investment, though, seems extravagent and ignores at least one major consequence.

Sub-urban shopping areas – already under pressure from superstores and neighbourhood mini supermakets – may see more customers drifting away.

The Acomb Front Street area in particular needs investment and one option might have been to provide an occasional market there within the pedestrian zone.

Having closed its Acomb office, the Council is partly responsible for the decline in footfall – and hence potential customers – in the Acomb area.

Replacement investment is long overdue.

York Community stadium management costs soar to £1.2 million – Waterworld closure threatened

Project costs for the Community stadium are set to increase from £750,000 to £1.2 million according to a report being considered by the Council next week http://tinyurl.com/York-stadium-update.

The Council is also abandoning the “all party” committee which was driving the project forward with overall responsibility now resting with a single Labour Cabinet member (Cllr Crisp). With many decision meetings now being held in private (Cllr Crisp hasn’t taken a decision in public since 8th May) once again it seems that the Council has something to hide.

The Council has confirmed that it will invest £4 million in the project (on top of the value of the stadium site and ongoing salary costs) but with the latest business case failing to show how this expenditure will be recovered.

With the Council now seeking to privatise the running of all its sports and swimming facilities, the current operator of the Waterworld/Huntington Stadium complex (GLL which is a “social enterprise” company) has given notice to terminate its management contract with effect from 1st April 2013.

The Council are hoping to negotiate a new reduced rental for the facility which currently brings in around £260,000 to the Councils coffers each year. They are hoping to keep secret what the reduced rental charge will be.