292 Tadcaster Road – Councillors vote against conversion back into house

Proposals to con292 Tadcaster Road photovert 292 Tadcaster Road back into a dwelling house were refused at a planning committee meeting today.

The vote was 6-4 with opponents objecting to an extension which formed part of the planning application

There had been no objections to the planning application

The building is currently used as offices by a telecoms company.

Among those voting against the conversion were Labour Councillors who claim that there is no alternative but to build homes on Green Belt land!

Keep it to your selfie – North Yorkshire Police launches new online safety campaign

North Yorkshire Police has launched a new campaign to raise awareness of online safety and child sexual exploitation among young people.

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 The ‘keep it to your selfie’ campaign is urging teenagers to #pausebeforeyoupost and think about the consequences of sharing images online.

It is estimated that as many as 75,000 paedophiles are online at any one time making it vitally important that young people know exactly who they are taking to on the internet.

Three videos have been produced to support the campaign, which is aimed at boys and girls aged between 11 and 18.

One of the videos will be released each week for the next three weeks on North Yorkshire Police’s social media channels.

The first video can be found here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvy1QDugYlA

Detective Chief Inspector Matt Walker, Head of Cybercrime for North Yorkshire Police, said: “If we are to tackle child sexual exploitation effectively, we have to educate young people and do whatever we can to highlight the dangers to them and promote online safety.

“The internet, and social media in particular, is a place where paedophiles can groom children by posing as someone else and we have to make young people aware of that.

“I hope the videos we have produced can help young people stop and think about what they are doing before posting anything online. People share images and information in the virtual world that they wouldn’t dream of sharing in the real world and we need to make young people think about that.

“It is also important to bear in mind that once you have shared an image online you lose control of it, you don’t know where it will end up or whose hands it will fall into. You might think you are only sharing it with one person but do you know who they are going to share it with?”

The ‘keep it to your selfie’ campaign was launched at Selby Globe Community Cinema on Thursday 9 June 2015.

Detective Inspector Shaun Page, North Yorkshire Police’s lead for child sexual exploitation, said: “I am urging people to share the videos as much as possible. It is really important that we educate young people about child sexual exploitation and we think that the best way to reach them is online.

“The videos all carry a strong message in a style which young people can identify with and if they can prompt people to think carefully when using the internet and social media then we are making progress.

“It is very difficult to investigate child sexual exploitation which is committed online, therefore prevention and education is extremely important if we are to protect young people from internet predators.”

Keep an eye on Twitter @NYorksPolice and Facebook www.facebook.com/NorthYorkshirePolice or visit our Youtube channel www.Youtube/NorthYorkshirePolice to see the latest video release.

More information about child sexual exploitation can be found at www.northyorkshire.police.uk/cse

LibDem reaction to Tory budget

Anyone interested in the details of summer budget can find some useful briefings and information here:

BBC
Local Government Association
Liberal Democrats

As a Liberal Democrat, this is obviously a difficult day. Our party spent five years preventing the Conservatives from implementing policies that we felt were unfair, as well as introducing distinctive Lib Dem policies that made our recovery fairer and more sustainable.
Sadly, today’s budget shows the real difference that Liberal Democrats made in government, and are no longer able to make after May’s elections.

Welfare Cuts – The first of an excessive £12 billion in cuts which will fall disproportionately on the poorest. Also, limiting child tax credits and universal credit payments to only cover the first two children in a family sets a worrying precedent for any future Tory changes to child benefit.

Student Maintenance – We protected the maintenance grants for the poorest students and prevented any changes to this in the last parliament. Now the Tories are turning it into a loan and adding it onto students’ debt.generator

Green Energy – We created a system of subsidies for renewable energy production, funded by taxes on energy companies, to shift our economy away from our dangerous reliance on carbon. In government, we more than doubled the amount of energy the UK gets from renewable sources. Described by David Cameron as “green crap”, these taxes and subsidies are now being slashed. This is a tragically short-sighted cut that undermines the promising green energy foundations we have spent five years struggling to create.

Housing – The mass sell-off of housing association properties is a shameful example of short-term Tory electioneering at the expense of the social fabric of our communities. The plans for replacement of properties are threadbare and this whole plan has been ill thought-through. Now, these plans are being joined by the removal of housing benefit for Under-21s, which is going to make it even harder for young people and the less well off to find a home in our communities.

These are just four areas where the absence of Liberal Democrats in government will soon be felt. There will, no doubt, be more – such as protecting the Human Rights Act, fighting the Snooper’s Charter

Locally and nationally, we will continue to campaign for the fairer Britain. You can join us in this campaign by clicking here.

Join us today, and help us continue the fight to protect our environment, our civil liberties, our housing and welfare systems, and fairness in higher education.