Housing completions still falling in York

The Council is obliged to produce an “Annual Monitoring Review” which looks at how it’s performance compares to its targets.

The latest available is for the 2011/12 year. It can be viewed here.

The number of homes completed in the City in each of the last 10 years is as follows

House building, Norfolk

2003 – 669
2004 – 1193
2005 – 949
2006 – 875
2007 – 557
2008 – 502
2009 – 606
2010 – 572
2011 – 354
2012 – 171 (first 6 months excluding specialist student units)

Of the 171 only 29 were classified as “affordable”.

The Cabinet member with responsibility for housing in the City is expected to come under pressure at the Council meeting later this week.

She will have to explain why it looks like the total number of affordable homes provided will be the lowest for at least 6 years.

At the same time the waiting list for homes has reached an all time high.

Planning permissions granted for home construction fell to only 198 in 2011. The Council have declined to forecast what the outturn for the current financial year will be.

Some commentators are forecasting that the number of (unimplemented) planning permissions will fall to an all time record low this year.

As at September 2011 the figure stood at 3120.

Tomorrow we’ll look at which of these permissions are on stalled developments and why.

York Council Customer Centre at “West Offices” opens tomorrow (Monday)

City of York Council’s brand new purpose-built Customer Centre will open its doors to the public at 10am on Monday 25 March, bringing all customer services together in one place for residents to access. The public entrance is on Toft Green.

Residents will be able to get information, advice and support from a range of services, including:
• Benefits
• Council Tax
• Business and training
• Education and learning
• Environment and waste
• Planning and building control
• Housing
• Parking and concessionary travel

Residents will also be able to talk to advisors from other city services such as Future Prospects, the South Yorkshire Credit Union, with the Citizens Advice Bureau joining the centre in the near future.

Customer entrance

Customer entrance

It is unclear which other public services (health, police etc) will be accessible at the offices. One of the original objectives of the move was to provide a “one stop shop” facility for residents.

The Council’s customer centre opening hours will be 8:30-17:00 from Monday-Friday.

Horses United 1 Dog & Cat Rovers 0

horse dog

Coming soon after the Council announced that it would be scrapping the specialist animal welfare (formerly dog warden) officer patrols, it has decided to appoint a “horse bailiff”.

The move comes after numerous complaints about horses straying onto private land and being the cause of several road traffic accidents.

The Cabinet is set to approve a “protocol” next week

The plan will cost Council tax payers £40,000 a year to implement