York Floods Update – Disaster Fund says 100 grants handed over

Appeal now paying out £200 per victim

The administrators of the £500,000 York (flood) Disaster Fund have moved to clarify how their funding is being used.

They are right to do so.

A couple of days ago the York Council claimed that only £18,000, of the £500,000 already raised, had actually found its way to victims.

The average pay-out was only £300.

Now the Two Ridings Community Foundation says that 100 grants have been issued.

416 homes together with 157 businesses were flooded in December.

According to the Foundation, the initial immediate support awards available for household’s subject to flooding, are:

All households affected by flooding will receive a £200 award
Any household in hardship can apply for a further award of £500 to cover replacement of essential items, excess fuel bills and other costs associated with their homes being flooded
After that, any household can apply for further needs but it will be assessed on a case by case basis

A second phase of grants is planned.

The Foundation says, “We will make available individual grants for households whose income has been affected over a long term period and households who have continued to experience increased household expense due to relocation resulting from the flood”.

Who can apply?

Individuals or families whose properties and contents have been damaged by flooding or who are suffering other hardship as a result of the flooding.
“We would not normally fund businesses but we may consider small business owners or employees facing hardship due to lost work or income because of storm or flood. The fund is not designed to replace income but we may be able to consider cases of hardship”.
Voluntary and community groups, charities and other not for profit organisations that may have experienced loss due to flooding or may be experiencing an increase in demand for services as a result of providing support to individuals affected.

Applications can be made online via www.trcf.org.uk or www.yorkdisasterfund.org.uk

The Foundation is promising to provide an update report early next week on how the Fund is being used.

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Hob Moor schools may become an “Academy”

The media are reporting that the Hob Moor and Hob Moor Oaks schools may be amalgamated with the controversial Ebor Academy Trust. The Trust recently announced plans for a 410 pupil “creative arts” school on the former Park and Ride site on Moor Lane. Opponent’s feared that a new school would siphon off pupils from other local schools including Woodthorpe, Dringhouses and Hob Moor.

An academy is an independent school funded by the state. An independent appraisal of the trend towards schools becoming academies can be found on the BBC web site

The Hob Moor schools are located in relatively new buildings which were built by the York Council in 2005. They continue to be maintained using private finance Initiative (PFI) funding.

New Hob Moor school been built in 2005

The school has had mixed academic results over the years. The most recent OFSTED report in 2013 rated both schools as “good”.

Becoming an academy would remove the provision of support from the local authority, such as their advisory services, special educational needs (SEN) and disability support services. If a school does not purchase services like these from the local authority, these may well become more expensive for schools to procure since individual academies would not benefit from the same economies of scale as the local authority.

Academies are their own admissions authority and, therefore, set their own admission policies. They are at present required to abide by the admissions code. Whilst academies cannot choose their intake, there is some evidence that academies intakes are not representative of their local community. Academies also have a higher exclusion rate than other types of schools.

Parents can complain to the school. However, academies are not part of the local authority family of schools and, therefore, if parents or neighbours are not satisfied or are unhappy with the outcome, they cannot complain, as they can now, to the local authority or their local Councillor to ask them to intervene.

Academies are not required to have community representatives on their governing bodies (but could choose to do so). The Hob Moor school is an important part of the local community. It includes a “children’s centre”.

Like most school sites there are sometimes complaints from neighbours about activities on the site or related to it..

The absence of a broadly based school governing body would represent a risk for relations with future parents, neighbours and other users of the site.

The school has promised to consult widely on their proposals.

Those consultations should include public meetings, open to the whole community, together with an advisory ballot aimed at giving (at least) every parent a vote.

Cllr Andrew Waller

Local Councillor Andrew Waller (who wasn’t consulted before the school issued their statement of intent) comments,

“we believe that the community is best served by schools which remain in the family of local authority schools with local accountability.

At this stage we know no more about the process of consultation with parents than what was in the newspaper but there is the issue of the need to consult with the wider community who have a stake in the future operation of the school. I believe that the whole community should have a say in the matter (accepting that legally it is simply a vote of the governing body which decides the outcome of this matter)”.

What’s on in York: Residents Festival 2016

Date: Sat 30 and Sun 31 Jan
Venues: Attractions, restaurants and shops across the city
Cost: free with a YorkCard, or York student card

Celebrating its 21^st year, over sixty attractions, eateries and retailers will be on offer for York residents to help cheer up the January blues.
York residents will once again have the chance to explore what’s on their doorstep free of charge.

Organised by Make It York and sponsored by First, the 2016 event is set to offer free entry to a host of York’s most celebrated attractions, one-off behind-the-scenes access to some of the city’s hidden gems, special events and some fantastic restaurant and retail deals.

This annual event is organised as a thank you to York’s residents for the warm welcome they give to York’s seven million global visitors each year.

For full listings please visit www.visityork.org/residentsfestival

or pick up a brochure from the Visitor Information Centre-available from early January.