Residents in west York are being urged to leave external Christmas lights on as concerns grow that Santa will be unable to find certain streets on Monday night.

A Council official has written to claim that the lighting on the Otterwood Lane – Huntsman’s Walk alley is working correctly “and is an improvement over the old lighting system”.

In reality, the snicket is in total darkness as the lighting unit points towards Huntsmans Walk leaving the pedestrian link unlit.

Front Street still has patches of gloom but it is Burgess Walk that gets the highest rating on the “dim-ometer”. The Council are now saying that they are waiting for the electricity company to connect up a lamppost. It has been unlit for months.

The Council deny having felled the street lamp on Spurr Court. Who did remains a mystery (but it has gone). The Council say they are “looking into it”. They had better “look” during daylight hours!

Meanwhile at the last Council meeting Cllr “Leftie” Levene, who is responsible for the shambles, assured residents that the new lights that have been installed provide better illumination than those that were replaced(!) He told Councillors that “the original lights may have appeared brighter because the light distribution was not controlled (i.e. shining upwards, sideways, backwards), while the new lights are dark skies compliant and only shine the light where required”.

It is actually over a decade since the Council started to introduce “hooded” lights which specifically avoided light pollution (the bain of astronomers). However, the new lights fail to illuminate a wide enough area around the lamppost (which is why the old lamps were designed to shine sideways!)

NB. A temporary floodlight has been fitted to illuminate the steps to Lendal Bridge. The Council says it is still waiting for a new ornate lantern to be delivered to provide a permanent replacement. The steps have been a source of danger for nearly 9 months. The Council only took action when a serious complaint about safety was registered together with a threat that failure to act would result in a referral to the Ombudsman

The Council has now published responses to questions tabled at the last Council meeting. One disappointment came when the Council Leader revealed that he currently knows of no regeneration projects that the Council could help to fund and which would assist the Acomb Front Street area.

Question: “What proportion of retail and office space is currently empty in each of the City’s sub-urban wards and how does this compare to the City Centre? How much of the “Innovation & Delivery Fund” and the “Economic Infrastructure Fund” does the Cabinet Leader intend to allocate to regeneration initiatives in sub-urban employment centres such as Acomb Front Street?”

Leaders answer: “Whilst this data is not held at ward level, we know that 5.56% of retail units, and 25.26% of office units, by number, are vacant in areas outside the city centre, in comparison to 5.20% and 28.00% respectively for the city centre. I would welcome any financially justifiable ideas which contribute to economic growth from all areas of the city”.

The same meeting also turned down a request for formal Council support for the “Acomb Alive” project

York police are offering a free cycle marking service to help stop thieves getting away with expensive gifts this Christmas.

Officers from York West Safer Neighbourhood Team will be at York Racecourse for two days helping people to mark their bikes and register on the immobilise database.

Members of the public can meet the police on County Stand Road between 9am and 7pm on Saturday 22 and Sunday 23 December 2012 to have their cycles marked as part of the ongoing anti-bike theft campaign – Operation Spoke.

(more…)