Foxwood park and Spindle Close snicket links to Ashbourne Way may be secured at night

The Council is to consider, on 18th April, a petition which asks for the night time closure of the snickets leading off Ashbourne Way

The snickets are well used during the day, not least by children attending the Woodthorpe School.

Night time closures have been tried before – notably in the nearby Carrfield/Foxton/Chantry Close area – where, in 2009, a similar plan was abandoned following objections by local residents.

Schemes of this sort now tend to rely on mechanisms which automatically lock and unlock a gate at a particular time. None have worked successfully in York other than perhaps that located at the rear entrance to the railway station, from Lowther Terrace, although there the access is part of the cycle network.

Such heavy duty gates are expensive to install and maintain.

Council officials have previously ruled out, on cost grounds, using staff to lock this type of gate while the use of volunteers has been ruled out on reliability grounds.

The meeting on 18th is likely to be asked only to consider whether the request should be put out for more general consultation.

Petitions against York Labour policies gaining support

Despite a rather awkward interface. a number of electronic petitions, being collected via the Councils web site, are gaining relatively large numbers of supporters.

Currently the numbers “signing” each are:

“Protect our Library and Archives Service” – No to cuts, closures or Social Enterprise Respondents 120 Deadline to sign by 21/03/2013

“Stop the Green Bin Tax” Respondents 130 Deadline to sign by 03/04/2013

“(Save) the toy bus” Respondents 40 Deadline to sign by 05/04/2013

Petition to see a “reduction in chlorine used in water treatment” Respondents 15 Deadline to sign by 14/04/2013

“Protect Towthorpe Household Waste Depot” Respondents 208 Deadline to sign by 1/05/2013

Click here to go to the Council’s petition page

Complaints about blocked drainage gullies up by 43% in York

Blocked gulley complaints.  Click to enlarge

Blocked gulley complaints.
Click to enlarge

The Labour Councils decision to reduce the routine cleaning of gullies in much of the City has proved to be a false economy.

During 2012, 649 complaints were received by the Council from residents who were concerned about carriageway and footpath flooding.

Block gullies were blamed.

Special cleans had to be arranged on 201 occasions.

James and drain