York’s accessibility information in the palm of your hand.

National disability organisation, AccessAble is launching a free app to give visitors and residents of York high-quality accessibility information they can access whilst out and about.

Long-term partner of City of York Council and provider of detailed access guides, AccessAble have created a new mobile app which aims to transform the quality and availability of accessibility information.

The app provides detailed access guides to 10,000s of places across the UK and Ireland. Crucially each guide is created by locations having been visited by an AccessAble surveyor and local people with accessibility requirements, who can collect over 1,000 pieces of information for just one venue.

The app itself can display facts, figures and photographs as well as step-by-step descriptions of what accessibility is like at a particular location. Users can create their own account and save favourite places and filter their preferences depending on their accessibility needs.

Find out more at www.AccessAble.co.uk
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Spark appeals against planning decision

Spark April 2018

It seems that the Spark organisation has submitted a last-minute appeal against the Council’s decision not to allow them to keep the Street Art/Graffiti on their Piccadilly frontage. They had hoped that the Council would not enforce the planning condition which requires them to install wood cladding on the outside of the shipping containers.

In August they lost their planning application to revise the conditions governing their use of the site.

Any appeal could take months to resolve, so it may now be down to the Council, as the landlord, to act to remedy the defect. The Council will be expecting a major payment from the business over the next few weeks.

The Spark lease runs out in June 2020.

Spring clean anyone?

As we’ve pointed out over the last few days, many of our public open spaces are looking clean and tidy at the moment.

In west York parks and amenity areas provide an attractive informal opportunity for leisure although in the Westfield ward several are under threat of development.

But there are several areas where litter and fly tipping are a problem. In some cases, items dumped many months ago still haven’t been removed by the Council.

Time for some action we think.

Fortunately, there is an active residents association in the Foxwood area and they have promised to support a month of action in their neighbourhood.

Elsewhere in the Westfield ward residents are currently less well organised so some proactive management is required.

Actions speak louder than words

Shortly there will be local elections in the area. Some candidates are already delivering literature. Both Labour and the LibDems have been seen on the streets this weekend.

The Tories have resorted to employing a contractor to deliver their leaflets They candidly admit that they don’t actually have any candidates, with only a few weeks to go before nominations close.

But no matter. If the candidates or all parties want to impress why don’t they individually organise a “spring clean” in a problem area? This might help to make a favourable impression on voters as well as enhancing the local environment?

The Keep Britain Tidy organisation coordinates an annual Great British Spring Clean campaign. This year the campaign will run between 22nd March – 23rd April 2019 and will focus on removing single use plastics from our open spaces.

Please visit their web site for more details https://www.keepbritaintidy.org/get-involved/support-our-campaigns/great-british-spring-clean

Grange Lane wood – extensive fly tipping and litter a continuing issue

Dumped mattress in Acomb Wood has been there for several months.

 

Litter in back Front Street is a constant problem

Fly tipping on Chesney’s Field reported twice