£387,350 Coppergate fines saga drags on

A report has been published which confirms that £385,000 of Coppergate fines will be repaid before 31st March 2016. The applications deadline for seeking Lendal Bridge refunds is also being extended to the same date.

The report pointedly fails to indicate the costs that will be incurred in writing to all the drivers who were illegally fined between August 2013 and April 2014.

Nor is any information provided indicting how much has been claimed back by drivers who were illegally fined for using Lendal Bridge.

In total, though, over £2 million is involved.

Coppergate - Time to move on

Coppergate -signs

The Council now needs to publish an up to date statement detailing all of the costs of this disastrous transport initiative.

The Council has now accepted that the signage used to indicate a change of access hours (an hour was added to the restrictions at the beginning and end of each day) was inadequate. The restrictions were later successfully challenged through the Traffic Penalty Tribunal.

12,269 drivers are thought to be entitled to a refund. Many were visitors to the City.

Council officials are not suggesting that the restriction order be revoked. Rather they suggest that better signage be installed following  consultation with the Department of Transport.

It is anticipated that the original restriction hours will be re-introduced (although the officer report is silent on this point)

The elephant in the room remains the future use of “spy cameras”.  The use of ANPR surveillance systems have been on the increase in recent years but the badly handled Lendal Bridge trial seriously damaged their credibility in the eyes of many York residents.

The cameras have not been used since April 2014.

In our view, the Council should abandon their use, in enforcing traffic restriction orders, unless there is a clear and specific safety issue that could only be addressed by the use of cameras.

Instead a uniformed Police officer could from time to time check that drivers were observing any restrictions of Coppergate.

If one or two drivers – whether by mistake or design – slip though the road during the day then that is something that the City will have to live with.

The Council will also have to decide whether to revive the idea of a public inquiry into the shambolic initiative.

In the past Councillors who acted recklessly with public money could be forced to pay compensation to taxpayers. Those concerned – most of whom lost their seats in May – may well be beginning to wish that they had heeded the warnings issued  by officials before the trials started and many aggrieved residents who – in the first 6 weeks – had pointed out the obvious failings in the project.

Museums/Art Gallery charges

art gallery 19880sThe first “open” decision being taken,  involving cross party debate, by the new Council, addresses the issue of charging residents who want to visit the Art Gallery and Museums in the City. The meeting on 29th July, is open to the public and there is an opportunity for residents to make representations.

Unfortunately, the background report is poor lacking basic statistics which are essential to fully understand what options are available.

It notably  fails to provide a breakdown of visitor numbers separating residents from others. A demographic breakdown is also missing.

Council officials have  not provided cost centre income and expenditure figures either historical or in business plan format.

They simply say that n additional Council grant of £700,000 would be required to continue “free” entry for residents.

Clearly the present Council have been dropped in a  hole by the previous administration which agreed to fund capital improvement works – the Art Gallery has been closed for 2 years now – in the belief that this would encourage more paying visitors (and thereby make up for a reduction in revenue grant of £900,000 over the last 3 years).

What is unclear is what agreement the Labour administration came to with the Museums Trust on the way that the reduced grant would be funded. The suspicion remains that Labour did a deal on the re-introduction of charges but were unwilling to publicise it before the Council elections.

So where next?

The York Museums Trust is now  a £10 million a year business following the decision, taken in the last decade, to transfer management responsibility for Museums and the Art Gallery to it.

Ironically when the transfer was made (the assets remain in the ownership of the Council) one of the Trust’s first acts was to scrap admission charges at the Art Gallery.  

That action has now returned to haunt them as they are seeking to impose a £7-50p entry charge when the newly refurbished gallery re-opens in the autumn

Compared to entry charges at other venues in the City (Minster is £10, Jorvik £10-25, Railway Museum – free) and  elsewhere in the world higher charges apply (Museum of Modern Art in New York is $25), the fee is relatively small. Under current proposals, York residents would get free entry on 2 days a year.

There is now no way back for the Council. Its budget was shot to pieces by the “gap year” antics of the last inexperienced Labour Leadership.

The, now coalition run, Council  is rightly trying to bring street level public service standards up to an acceptable (safe) level. It doesn’t have hundreds of thousands of pounds available to increase art gallery subsidies.

All that the new Council can hope to do is negotiate a reduced “casual” entry fee for YorkCard holders.  £5 might be regarded by many as reasonable, if children were given free entry.  

Such a concession might be seen as an acknowledgement of the 10% of its income that the Museums Trust gets from York Council Taxpayers.

If this meant non Yorkcard holder paying more, then we suspect few would complain.

But first the York Council and the Museums Trust must ensure that all the facts are on the table.

York police patrols to tackle rowdy behaviour during school holidays

A major new partnership operation in York will support vulnerable young people and clamp down on anti-social behaviour this summer holiday.

anti social behavior

Throughout the summer, Operation Liberate will see police joining forces with partner organisations to target areas where anti-social behaviour has been an issue in the past.

High-visibility patrols by officers, PCSOs and Special Constables will assess these areas and deal with any groups of young people. The operation is aimed to keep young people themselves feeling and being safe, providing them with constructive help and support.

Where appropriate, young people will be passed on to partner agencies and given the chance to discuss any issues they may have.  Meanwhile, parents will be contacted by the Youth Offending Team, who will provide them with relevant support and advice, and ask them to collect their child.

Operation Liberate is the first time such a large-scale initiative has been undertaken by North Yorkshire Police, and sees officers work closely with the Youth Offending Team, City of York Council, Lifeline, the Bridge House Sexual Assault Referral Centre, the NHS, the Rock Church, the Jack Raine Foundation and others.
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