Playday gets outdoors in The Groves, York on 10th August

If you’ve ever wondered what the perfect day of play might look like then York’s first street Playday would be a good place to go! Billed as one of the highlights of the summer Shine programme of activities for children and young people, the Playday takes place on Saturday 10 August from 1pm to 6pm at Door 84 Youth centre, (Lowther Street, The Groves) and along the length of Brownlow Street.

Playday is a free community event with lots of games and activities for the whole family to enjoy. York’s Playday is part of a national campaign to highlight the importance of play in children’s lives so, as a celebration of children’s rights to play, Brownlow Street will be closed all afternoon to host a themed street party. With National Playday earlier in the week, throwing this event at the weekend will allow even more people join in the fun.

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”Get York Building” report to be published

The controversial survey on barriers to house builidng in York discussed by the York Cabinet last year may finally be made available to the public.

In response to a question from Ann Reid, the newly charmless Cllr Laign has said,

“I would remind Cllr Reid that the findings from the GYB consultation were summarised in the report considered by Cabinet in February.

The conversations with individual developers, as she should realise being an experienced Councillor, often touched on commercially sensitive information and as such has been deemed confidential and it is not appropriate for this to be shared with the wider public.

However, it is acknowledged that not all the information from developers is commercially sensitive and I have asked officers to prepare a redacted version”.

Lendal bridge – figures begin to trickle out

Lendal bridge – always been busy at 5;00pm

Liberal Democrat Councillor Paul Firth managed to squeeze the following information out of the Council at its last meeting.

“During the closure period on Lendal Bridge, what will be the average increase in:
• Mileage
• Journey time
• Cost
for private car drivers who otherwise would have used the bridge?”

The answer was:

Your question cannot be answered with certainty – that is why we are undertaking the trial.

However the worst case scenario from the modelling work that was undertaken, which ignores, positive transfers to alternative forms of transport that we and coalition Government policy supports, shifts in times of travel, etc., indicates a 0.82% increase in km travelled, but is based on 2010 traffic levels which are higher than current flows.

For the 630 motorists currently continuing to make cross river journeys by car in the hour over lunch,

The average increase in mileage = 1.3 miles

Journey time to do this extra 1.3 miles = 5.7 minutes

Additional cost = 37 pence

However if there was an 11% shift of drivers from cars to buses, cycles and walking, the average traffic reduction in a study of similar measures across Europe referred to in the previous Cabinet paper, there would be a reduction in distance travelled (pcu/km) of 10.3% within the simulation network (roughly the CYC boundary).

There would also be an improvement in driving conditions with an increase in average speed from the current 17.4 kph to 17.8 kph in the Inner Ring Road and Water End cordon area (it would go down to 16.9 kph without any overall traffic reduction), an increase of 2.3% in average speed.

The figures are similar to those that we published last month.

They reveal huge potential increases in journey times and costs for residents living in the City centre.

The Council has now set the bridge closure date for 27th August