Derisory funding allocation to Acomb by Council

Front Street

Front Street

We understand that the York Council is being recommended to allocate only £30,000 to a much needed regeneration project in the Acomb Front Street area.

That is just 0.1% of the Council budget that is available for economic development projects in the City.

The Labour Council has been blamed for the stark decline in the area over the last 2 years. The decline started with the council closing its Acomb Office before reducing the number of litter bins in the area.

Ward Committees in Acomb and Westfield, which had over £80,000 a year to invest in local public services, lost their budgets.

Fly tipping in Front Street back lane

Fly tipping in Front Street back lane


Local Traders fought back with an “Acomb Alive” campaign and a successful festival was held in the summer.

But the whole area needs a lift with the removal of weeds, road repairs, repainting and replacement of street furniture all high priorities. Dumped rubbish needs to be systematically removed, fences repaired, graffiti removed and walls rebuilt.

Some broken bus timetable information boards have been out of service now since 2011. A lasting memorial to neglect.

The £30,000 can be compared to the single £500,000 project which is currently seeing Kings Square in the City Centre being repaved.

Well fancy that! Click to enlarge

Well fancy that! Click to enlarge

Now Dringhouses and Copmanthorpe bin emptying missed by Council

Monday 23 September today’s missed bins! This is the third week of the new bin emptying schedules and still no sign of an improvement.

Green Bin : (Tadcaster Rd)

◦Pulleyn Drive
◦White House Gardens
◦White House Rise
◦White House Drive
◦White House Dale
◦St Georges Place
◦Newington Court
◦Mount Vale Drive
◦Towton Avenue
◦Moorgarth Avenue
◦Mount Vale
◦St Aubyns Place
◦Trentholme Drive
◦The Mount
◦Old Moor Lane
◦Aldersyde
◦The Horseshoe
◦Tadcaster Road (Part)

(Copmanthorpe)◦Wilstrop Farm Road
◦Barnfield Way
◦Paddock Close
◦Holmfield Close
◦School Lane
◦Manor Farm Close
◦Westfield Court
◦Horseman Lane
◦Horseman Avenue
◦Horseman Close
◦Lynwood Avenue
◦Manor Heath
◦Rutland Close
◦Lynwood View
◦Main Street (Part of)
Recycling:

◦St Aubyns Place
◦Tadcaster Road (20 Houses)

The Council say, “Green waste will be collected on Tuesday 24th September, please remember to present your bins/boxes”.

John Lewis job vacancies announced

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Unemployed residents in York are being offered support to help them apply for jobs at the city’s new John Lewis store, which is due to open next Easter.

Learning City York – York’s Lifelong Learning Partnership – is working with Job Centre Plus, the National Careers Service, the council’s York Learning service and other training providers to support around 70 unemployed residents to apply for sales, stock and catering roles, providing pre-employment training to help them reach and be successful at interviews. Job seekers interested in the positions are encouraged to speak to their JCP advisor.

The new store at Monks Cross will cover 92,000 sq ft, providing fashion, home and electronics, and will create around 300 new jobs. Vacancies for first line management positions are open for online applications from today (Monday 23 September) at http://www.jlpjobs.com/ .

Vacancies for specialist roles, selling and stock management will follow in October and December.

First offers to meet passengers at Acomb venue on Thursday to explain timetable changes

old bus

To ensure customers are fully aware of the proposed timetable changes, First is planning to hold the following three public drop in sessions this week at venues where some of the bigger network changes are taking place:

Haxby – Wednesday 25 September, 2.30pm-5.30pm, Haxby & Wigginton Methodist Church Hall

Acomb – Thursday 26 September – 9am-12noon, Acomb Parish Church Hall

City Centre -Thursday 26 September – 2pm-5pm, City of York Council West Offices

They say, “Further drop in sessions will take place over the next few months as First looks to make further customer-orientated network changes”.

Click here for a map showing the revised (First) bus network in York

The following internet link will take you to a full list of the service changes. http://www.firstgroup.com/ukbus/york/travel_news/service_updates/?item=9391&conf=0

The offer is likely to be welcomed as the precise working arrangements for the “Acomb bus hub“, and the frequency of the new service on Hamilton Drive, have raised question marks with some users?

Revised York bus timetables on First web site …… but still no reliability info

The detailed new bus timetables – which will be introduced on Sunday – can now be viewed on the First web site.

However, the Council continues to refuse to release information about bus service reliability in the City.

bus-stop1

Ironically a meeting is taking place today which talks about the importance of “journey planning”. It seeks to promote increased bus use but develops acute myopia on the issue of service reliability information.

Uncertainty is the single factor most likely to cause potential bus users to instead opt for the car.

The Council in response to the latest Freedom of Information request, says that it has entered into a confidentiality agreement with the local bus companies.

It receives reliability data but the council claims that it is prevented, by the terms of the agreement, from sharing the information with passengers.

Only an annual reliability figure is published and that on an obscure DPT web site. The latest (2011/12) figures suggest that around 80% of York services run on time.

Behind closed doors logo

Incredibly even reliability data on services paid for by the Council taxpayer (around £800,000 is paid out in subsidies each year) is not published.

What has compounded the mistake has been a decision to cease independent checks of service reliability. These would not be covered by the data sharing protocol and could – as happened in the period up to 2011 – be published. Labour stopped the checks shortly after taking office.

The so called data sharing protocol is effectively a restrictive practice. which is to the disadvantage of the taxpayer and bus passenger.

It is likely that – unless more information is offered – that an appeal to the Information Commissioner (and possibly the Ombudsman) may be lodged.

In the mean time the governments Transport Minister is being urged to introduce regulations which require all public transport providers to publish the same quality of service information which rail operators have been forced to do for over a decade.

Over 12 months ago the Minister responsible urged the Council to start providing more quality of service information.

Oliver House – the parking issue

Thanks to those residents from the Bishophill are who contacted us to say that some people are apparently exploiting the Oliver House situation to get free car parking.

The property is located in the middle of a ResPark area with residents paying around £100 a year (depending on car size) for parking permits.

Cars parked at Oliver House

Cars parked at Oliver House

Apparently some drivers are monopolising the car parking spaces which were provided for the use of staff and residents at the elderly persons home.

The 8 spaces could bring in around £1000 a year from car parking charges.

On Sunday only one of the parked vehicles was displaying ResPark pass suggesting that the Council is loosing out on potential income.

It’s about time that the Council explained what is going to happen with this building and when.