Labour Councillors have announced a 4.4% increase in Council house rents will be implemented from 1st April. It is the first increase to be decided locally following the Coalition governments decision to delegate Council housing finance management back to Local Authorities.

Labour have said that they expect to implement more above inflation increases which will see the average weekly Council home rent rise to £81-71 by the time that they are due to leave office in 2015.

Under that last Labour government around £7 million a year was being siphoned out of the City to subsidise housing in other parts of the country.

Now local authorities are free to make their own decisions about how to balance the housing account.

One consequence of this new freedom is that York will be able to invest around £6 million in building 60 new Council homes.

In addition the programme of extending existing council homes to accommodate larger families will be reinstated. The programme was suspended when Labour took control of the Council in 2011.

There has been speculation that the Council will build the new Council houses on the Beckfield Lane recycling centre site with the former Fordland’s site at Fulford and the now redundant Burnholme school site also apparently possibilities.

We hope that they will avid cramming more houses onto amenity spaces or unsuitable garage sites.

More information is promised in April

NB. The Council has now announced its window replacement programme for the forthcoming year. Draughty windows in the following streets will be replaced:
• Kingsway West (even numbers)
• Stuart Road
• Middleton Road
• Danesfort Avenue
• Lincoln Court
• Tudor Road
• Gale Farm Court
• Gale Lane
• Cornlands Road
• Tennent Road
• The Knoll
• Lown Hill
• St Stephens Road
• Thoresby Road
• The Reeves

North Yorkshire Police is urging residents to be vigilant after a series of burglaries across the county.

Homes have been targeted in the Hambleton, Malton and York area and police are urging residents to ensure they take adequate security measures.

Details click here

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You can download the latest directory by clicking here

New Festival of the Passions, Early Music Festival and Handel’s Messiah for 2013

York Minster has announced details of its most impressive ever year of music with the launch of the 2013 programme of concerts and performances, which includes a new Festival of the Passions in March, participation in York’s Early Music Festival, a Summer of Music and rounding the year off with a performance of Handel’s Messiah in December.

Labour Councillors have said that, in future, neighbours will NOT receive a notification from the Council about any planning applications that they receive.

Instead they will depend on residents seeing the notices which should be displayed on a nearby lamppost.

We think that such a system is highly fragile.

We will therefore report on this web site the applications received each week for the Westfield Ward. Most are likely to be routine domestic extensions, many of which are likely to be uncontroversial.

Full details can be found by quoting the application reference on the “planning portal” web site. Click here.

The Council is also scrapping one of its three planning committees.

The application received this week:

(more…)

Hot on the heels of the announcement of prohibitive parking charges which will shortly be introduced in the City centre, the Council has now indicated its plans to evacuate the whole area!

City of York Council has published and shared its city centre evacuation plan “to assist the emergency services and the council manage an orderly evacuation in the event of a major incident.

The police and fire service routinely clear small public areas surrounding an incident to preserve life and evidence, but when there is a major event it may be necessary to isolate a larger area.

To help them do this, the plan details how to clear part of or all of the area within the Bar Walls”.

This city centre area has been divided into three areas with 24 numbered zones. Click here