Bootham Gillygate junction to be closed for 1 week (overnight)

St Leonards Place, Bootham, GillygateCarriageway Resurfacing Works

Bootham – Gillygate roadworks from 17th November 2014

City of York Council have announced that it is to reconstruct the junction at St Leonards Place, Bootham, Gillygate starting on the 17th November 2014.

The works are programmed to take 1 week to complete, working Monday to Friday between 7:00pm and 5:00am.

To carry out the works safely, a temporary full road closure will be in place between 7:00pm and 5:00am Monday to Friday, with some accommodation works taking place outside of these times.

Due to the nature of the works and the deep excavations taking place, it will not be possible for the buses to access the bus stops on St Leonards Place and all buses will be diverted to temporary bus stops.

Residents and visitors will have pedestrian access to properties and local attractions and Traffic Management Officers will be on site to escort pedestrians where required.

Residents in the works area will have pedestrian access to their properties but no vehicular access will be possible during the hours of working. Parking is not permitted on any of the roads involved. The car park entrance within the works will be affected and may not be accessible at all times during the works. Access to Marygate and Union Terrace car parks will still be available from Bootham and Clarence Street respectively.

Emergency services will be permitted through the works in an emergency situation and pedestrian access will be available at all times. Cyclists will have to dismount and use the footways when travelling through the affected areas.

Lendal Bridge Inquiry to be revived

£162,000 refunded so far to motorists who were illegally fined.

It looks like the Labour Councillors who were responsible for the £1.3 million Lendal Bridge closure fiasco will not get away scot free.

In August, when Labour still had a Council majority, they voted not to undertake a review of what went wrong with the trial closure.

Now a report, suggesting that a full and open inquiry into the failure should take place, is to be considered on 12^th November.

Residents will be eager to learn how a scheme, that was obviously failing only one month into the trial, was allowed to continue for another 6 months.
They will be expecting the legal advice received by the Council at each stage to be made public.
They will want to know what secret meetings took place and how they influenced the Councils position.
They will look very carefully at the public statements made by officials and Council members in March and April 2014 – after the enforcement arrangements had been found to be unlawful – and which gave the impression that the cameras were still being used for enforcement purposes.
The committee will also no doubt wish to look in detail at the costs that were incurred, not least those that accumulated during an ill considered attempt to appeal against the decision of the Traffic Penalty Tribunal Adjudicator

Most of all they will be looking to the Council to remove its arbitrary December deadline for refund applications – from those fined unlawfully – and to finally agree to write directly to all those affected telling them of their right to claim a refund.

So far 7,783 refund claims have been processed.

To date a total of £162k has been refunded as part of the refund process.

However, we understand that some claims have been refused and information about how many – and why – is urgently being sought by LibDem Councillors.

Income from the Lendal Bridge trial totalled £1,378,000. There was administrative expenditure totalling £527k which primarily covered the cost of processing penalty charge notices. As part of the year end accounts the Council made provision of £708,000 to cover the refund penalty charge notices.

Separately the report confirms that the Adjudicator has still not dealt with an appeal against his decision on Coppergate. No camera enforcement of the Coppergate restrictions is currently taking place.

Cllr Andrew Waller – the new chair of theEconomic & City Development Scrutiny Committee which will consider the report next week – commented:

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