Date: Wed 26 Feb
Time: 7pm to 9pm
Venue: York High School, Cornlands Road
Cost: £90 (£70 & £25 concessions)
Hola! Come along and learn a new language so you can dazzle your friends and family when you order from the menu in Spanish
To enrol please visit
/events.york/standardbookingprocess/vieweventdetails?id=3125125 or phone the booking office on 01904 552806.
People across York and North Yorkshire are being given the chance to have a say on planning policies covering major issues such as quarrying, mineral and gas extraction, and waste disposal.
North Yorkshire County Council, City of York Council, and the North York Moors National Park Authority, are working together to produce a Minerals and Waste Joint Plan. It will contain policies and guidelines to help take decisions on planning applications covering the period up to 2030. It will also identify suitable sites for such developments.
This will be followed by a “community asset transfer”.
What this means is that the volunteer committees, who run the centres, will be expected to raise funding not only for day to day activities but also for the repair and maintenance of all aspects of the buildings.
Typical community centres, like the ones at Foxwood and Chapelfields, have running costs of between £25,000 – £50,000 a year.
In the past the bill for part of these costs have been picked up by the Council.
This year it has reduced its grants to the centres by £70,000.
2014/15 will be the final year that the centres will get the remaining £70,000 grant.
After that the Centres will be on their own.
It means that, unless volunteers can be found to take on the additional financial burden, the Centres will close (or, more likely, simply be sold to the highest bidder)
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Meanwhile we are told that the Council intends to privatise its building cleaning contracts. How this will affect the community centres, and for how long, remains to be seen.
@yorkwalls Quartet at Phoenix, Fishergate Bar. contemp jazz, cool grooves. 8pm free entry, lovely beer! Pls RT pic.twitter.com/cP5uZMVyYw
— Ian Chalk (@Chalkie100) February 16, 2014
Former Council Leader Andrew Waller (right) helps with the work
About a dozen residents turned up to help with the Foxwood Park clean up organised by the Foxwood Residents Association on Saturday.
Further work is planned for later in the year.
The day is the first big sport and activity event of the 2014 health and fitness calendar, in a year when York residents are being encouraged and inspired by the Tour de France to do more physical activity.
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