Whats on: Lets go Lego, discover DUPLO

Date: Fri 4 Dec
Time: 10.15am – 11.00am , or 11.15am – 12noon
Venue: Explore Clifton Library
Cost: Free but booking essential

Interactive Lego plaLego Duploy session, specially designed to bring storytelling, creativity and imagination together.
Sessions are free but booking is essential

Each child will receive a bag of Duplo bricks to take home.

Booking is essential, ages 18 months to 5yrs old

Contact 01904 552663 or email  clifton@exploreyork.org.uk for details.

What’s on: Christmas Evening Extravaganza TONIGHT

 

Thu 3 Dec: 5.00pm – 8.00pm: Fairfax House

Red RibbonsAs part of York’s Late Night Thursdays, Fairfax House will be staying open late from 5.00pm until 8.00pm on Thursday 3rd December for a special Christmas Evening Extravaganza.

Join us for beautiful Christmas music with The Mount’s Chamber Choir as they sing from the Grand Staircase to fill Fairfax House with carols and festive pieces.

Come and buy your Christmas gifts and enjoy discounted shopping in the museum shop with 15% off across all ranges for one night only. We have a fantastic array of special gifts, cards and antiques available.

You will also be able to enjoy the festive Georgian display, The Keeping of Christmas, and wander through the period rooms decked with evergreens and 18th-century decorations. Don’t miss the spectacular dining room display set with dessert and magnificent sugarwork table decorations.

Mulled wine and mince pies will also be available in the Georgian Kitchen.

What’s on: St Nicholas Christmas Festival

Continues until Wed 23 Dec
St Nicks ChaletsWith a new twist for this year, Parliament Street will be home to a Scandinavian style tipi, a new Ice Trail, a new Choirs’ Weekend and the whole St Nicholas Festival and Fair will now run for 35 days.

Snug wooden chalets, dressed with twinkling lights will line Parliament Street, St Sampson’s Square and Coppergate and for the first time will appear on the terrace of The Judge’s Lodging on Lendal.

In Kings Square, York’s Chocolate Story will be welcoming a very special guest, namely Father Christmas himself, who arrived into York on 19th November and will have his very own cosy wooden grotto.

Bringing ice back to the city centre, as part of York’s Christmas Festival, businesses from across York have sponsored thirty specially commissioned hand carved ice sculptures, designed by Glacial Art.

Thor’s Tipi will offer a festive experience, where friends and family can gather around a roaring fire, with cosy furs to keep the cold at bay, all in a beautiful giant tipi. Thor’s Tipi will be serving a delicious outdoor winter BBQ, homemade sweet treats, festive hot chocolate, mulled wine, draft ales and Christmas cocktails.

Over one hundred stallholders at the St Nicholas Fair will be selling a range of gifts including jewellery, ceramics, homewares, crafts and Yorkshire produce such as locally made wines and cheeses.

For more information please see www.visityork.org/christmas.aspx

Leeds City Region LEP report claims £1.2 million invested in York

LEP report Dec 2015Today’s Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership (LEP) report claims the LEP has helped York over the last four years to unlock £1.127m private sector investment, has created 22 jobs through £167,883 LEP grant investment and has provided support to around 50 SME’s.

The report also outlines that work by the Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership (LEP) as a whole has added an extra £1.4 billion to the Leeds City Region’s annual economic output and helped create an additional 3,200 jobs for local people.

4,300 businesses have benefitted from LEP finance and support, and this combined activity has unlocked around £491 million of private sector investment in the region. For every £1 of taxpayers’ money secured by the LEP, some £10 in economic output has been generated in line with the ambitions in the LEP’s overall Strategic Economic Plan.
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City’s new centre for primary deaf children officially opens

The Caddell Centre, York’s new centre specialising in teaching primary-school aged deaf children, will be officially opened on 4 December by six deaf pupils.

The centre has been commissioned by City of York Council and will be run by the York Specialist Teaching Team in collaboration with Hempland Primary School where it is based.
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Acomb residents create a community arts exhibition

Residents are enjoying viewing an exciting new community arts exhibition at Lidgett Grove Methodist Church, which brings to life the past and present of its surrounding area.

Lidgett Grove art wall

The extensive display is the result of an 18-week community arts project, organised by the council’s York Learning team.

It was supported by Explore York Libraries and Archives and is part of the Heritage Lottery Funded ‘York: Gateway to History’ project.

The project was developed with tutor Donna Taylor and involved 14 local residents who were either church attendees or young mums regularly attending the Lidgett Grove community cafe. York Learning team provided the project members with a free crèche. As a group they discussed how to take the project forward and decided to research their local area in detail and create an exhibition to share their findings with others.
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York Councillors face climate change challenge

Officials want to reject a solar farm plan for Naburn Sewage works site
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In a week where most nations have been in Paris coming to terms with the need to cut carbon emissions, York Councillors will have the opportunity to take a small step forward next week.

They are being asked to approve a plan which would see the installation of a solar photovoltaic (PV) array in approximately 42 rows of solar panels known as strings, with associated infrastructure on a site adjacent to the Sewage Treatment Works (STW).

The planning application says, “Each string of panels would be mounted on a rack comprising poles pile-driven to a depth of approximately 1.5m, without the need for excavation. The panels would be mounted at around 0.8m from the ground at the lowest point at the southern edge rising to approximately 2.25m at the highest point, on the northern edge. Each string of panels would be between 3m and 7m apart. They would be tilted 22 to 35 degrees from the horizontal and orientated southwards”.

The facility would have a capacity to generate approximately 1.4megawatts peak. This energy would be used to directly provide power to the adjacent STW and would offset approximately 20-30% of the existing annual on-site demand. This equates to powering approximately 400 homes per annum with a saving of over 800 tonnes of CO2 emissions a year.

On the face of it, this would seem to be an easy win for the environment. The site is unsuitable for residential development because of the flood risk and the proximity of the sewage works.

It is unproductive land which is not cultivated.

The solar farm may not be a permanent feature for the site – technology moves on – and could easily be removed.

Officials are opposing the project on the grounds that the site is in the Green Belt and that the open views of the City (from the cycle track) may be adversely affected.

Given that the energy being produced by the farm will be used to power the sewage treatment works, many may conclude that this is a unique proposal which would not create a precedent for development in the Green Belt and that, in any event, the impact on “views” from the cycle track will be minimal

It will be interesting to see what conclusion the Council’s planning committee reaches next week.