Walk to School Week

Walk to School Week that is taking place from 7 -11 October.

27 schools will by vying for the coveted Jack Archer trophy which will be on offer to the school that gets the most pupils walking, cycling and scooting.

To celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Jack Archer Trophy the council will be matching Age UK’s prize of £200, giving the winning school £400 to spend on sports equipment. The runners up will receive £200 for sports equipment and third place will win hi-viz jackets for their class.

On Wednesday 9 October there will be a bonus prize given to the school with the most people who ride a scooter to school. The prize is a Scooter Pod for the school which is worth £300.

Walking to school has many benefits, helping both the environment and health. Children who walk to school are proven to be more alert in lessons, parents too at work. A 15 minute walk will provide a child with a quarter of the 60 minutes of recommended daily exercise.

To find out more about changing the way you travel in York go to http://www.itravelyork.co.uk/

Sky Ride local in York this weekend at York Sport village

A series of inclusive Sky Ride Local rides will be taking place in York thanks to a partnership between British Cycling and Sky.

Rides will take place on Saturday 5 and Sunday 6 October from 3pm until 5pm on the 1km purpose built cycling track at the York Sport Village on Hull Road

Get Cycling will have a fleet of adapted bikes for people to test out so everyone can take part.

Children aged 8 and above and adults can ride their own bikes, or use one of the adapted bikes.

Children aged under 8 are welcome to use tow bikes, trailers and frame seats. All riders are required to wear a helmet.

To sign up for one of the free, fun Sky Rides go to www.goskyride.com/York

5,500 cyclists took to the streets of York on September 14 for the first ever Sky Ride.

Traffic signal reliability questioned

The seemingly endless series of faults on York’s traffic lights and signalised pedestrian crossings will be questioned at the Council meeting on 10th October.

Residents were particularly concerned when the pelican crossing on Front Street was faulty for several days last week.

The London solution

The Council has not published any reliability statistics on traffic lights for over 2 years.

The response time targets for the Council’s maintenance contractor have also not been published

Cllr Ann Reid will ask the transport chief

“How many faults have been reported on traffic signals in York so far this year and what is the total time that signals have been out of service? How does this compare to the equivalent period last year?”

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The continued unavailability of traffic camera real time information on the Councils web site will also be highlighted at the meeting.

It is 6 months since the Council opened its new £300,000 CCTV control centre and put traffic camera icons on its web based congestion map.

In July the Council accepted that the move had been premature although the North Yorkshire Council has had similar camera access available for many years. Assurances were given that the links would go live shortly.

3 months later and the links still aren’t working.

Liberal Democrat Councillors have therefore tabled a question asking, “Why is the feed from the traffic cameras to the “itravel” York web site map still not working despite the assurances given at the July Council meeting? “

A list of all the questions submitted for the meeting can be read here: http://democracy.york.gov.uk/mgAi.aspx?ID=32384

Media and Labour Councillor in geography failure

Westview Close

Yorkshire Post and York Press readers will today be wondering why a Westfield Labour Councillor was given a platform to sound off about a housing development which he obviously thought was in his ward.

As we reported several weeks ago, a planning Inspector has overturned a Council decision and has allowed a small 8 home development to be built on Westview Close.

Westview Close is actually located in the Rural West ward, adjacent to the Civil Service Sports field.

It is about 1 mile away from the Westfield Ward.

“daffy” moment for Labour

It appears that the media have provoked “local” Westfield ward Councillor Dafydd Williams to condemn the decision amidst a confused diatribe about the need to establish a “Green Belt” boundary.

We have news for him. There is a Green Belt boundary and it is protected by the government.

All that has changed over the last year, is that Labour have proposed taking greenfield sites, like the Civil Service Sports field, out of the Green Belt.