Help to design the homes and spaces you want at Ordnance Lane

The next stage of designing York’s 600 new homes is underway, and residents are invited to get involved in helping shape the planning application for Ordnance Lane on 22 February.

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The design and project teams from architects Mikhail Riches and City of York Council met some 120 residents in November last year, who shared their ideas, priorities and local knowledge about the site which includes Ordnance Lane and part of Hospital Fields Road. This is one of eight sites forming part of the council’s Housing Delivery Programme*.

Now, residents are invited to the second consultation phase for this site: a detailed, hands-on workshop with lunch provided. A project briefing and site visit will set the scene before the design team will share early layout ideas for the site. Participants are then invited to work with the team using 3D models to explore the emerging plans and improve them.

The workshop is on Saturday 22 February, 9:45am-5pm, at York Steiner School, 25 Fulford Cross, York YO10 4PB. Spaces are limited, so please book your place at: https://ordnancelane.eventbrite.com

Anyone not able to join the workshop or anyone who wants to keep fully involved, are also invited to a public briefing session to learn about the design work to date on Thursday 5 March, 6:30-8pm, at Cycle Heaven, 31 Hospital Fields Road, York YO10 4FS.

David Mikhail, founding director of our architects Mikhail Riches and design director for the council’s Housing Delivery Programme, said: “Our design team and City of York Council are eager to learn from the people who live, work or study in the area.

“We believe in co-design. We also know that collaborating with people on our projects helps us to design and build a better place: a new place that belongs to the neighbourhood right from the start.”

Cllr Denise Craghill, Executive Member for Housing and Safer Neighbourhoods said: “Guided by our housing design manual (www.york.gov.uk/housingdesignmanual), residents are invited to help design beautiful, low-energy homes in a thriving new community.

“Each site has a three-stage engagement process, which means that as many people as possible can help create the homes and settings that they want to see and where present and future generations of York residents will live.”

Please book your place at https://ordnancelane.eventbrite.com. For more information, and to be kept updated on the project, please visit www.york.gov.uk/HousingDeliveryProgramme 

More road closures in The Groves area

Residents working with the council are being consulted on plans for extra road closures in The Groves residential area to stop through traffic.

The Council claims it will  improve the community’s air quality. However no figures on the impact on the volume and speed of  vehicles displaced onto the rest of the network have been provided. 

Slower moving traffic generally results in increases in pollution levels.

There are also concerns about the impact  that the scheme will have on emergency service vehicles. Some use the streets to access the York hospital.

The council considered and approved the principle of road closures in October 2019, subject to design.

Now, the Council says local people are being invited to a drop-in session to look at proposals to create four new road closures – in addition to two existing ones – to be introduced this spring.

“These will redirect drivers from The Groves’ narrow streets and on to the main road network in the area. Bikes and pedestrians will be able to get past the blocks and there will be space provided for turning vehicles at the closure positions”.

Local residents are invited to a drop-in session to chat to senior and ward councillors and council officers about the plans on Monday 17 February 2020, 6.30-8:30pm at Park Grove School.

Local residents can share their thoughts and ideas by emailing thegrovestrial@york.gov.uk or posting them to City of York Council, The Groves Trial Team, West Offices, Station Rise, York YO1 6GA

Lowfields residents slam York council information blackout

Residents living in the Lowfields area have taken to Facebook to express their disappointment about the lack of information being provided on the nearby school site development.

They have seen a Council newsletter which tells them what the names will be of the new streets which are currently being constructed. The Council credits/blames pupils at a local school for the choice of Rosemary Road, Moss Bank Court etc.

The newsletter also claims that the first occupants will move in before the end of the year,.

This may be true, but residents main concern is lack of information about the lack of activity on other parts of the site.

The Facebook critics say

“no new information about when building work on the whole site will be concluded. Residents were told that plant would be off the site within 3 years.

It now looks like building work will continue for over 5 years.

We understand that the “Yorspace” communal housing scheme funding appeal topped out at just over £400,000. It remains to be seen whether this will be sufficient to allow the scheme to actually get built.

The self build plots are apparently still “on offer” while there have been no takers from developers wanting to provide a care home (on the large reserved plot on the Green Lane side of the site).

Council newsletter Feb 2020

The location reserved for a “police station” is likely to remain empty indefinitely (there will be no police station) while there has been no progress on designing the “new health centre” which was promised for another part of the site.

No progress has been made in providing off site additional car parking spaces on Dijon Avenue.

It is really shameful that the Council should circulate a cheap leaflet like this without even attempting to address the major areas of local concern to local residents”.

WE think that residents have a point. They have been treated very badly by the York Council and deserve more respect and regular updates.

No one should have to live next to a building site for 5 years or more, simply because a local authority failed to get its act together

Fewer people visiting A & E at York hospital

Waiting times still stubbornly high

The latest NHS figures for January reveal that there were just over 17,000 presentations at the York Hospital Accident and Emergency unit.

Although there is usually a peak in winter, this number is down on the 19,683 who presented during August last year. ,

One in four (24.8%) patents attending had to wait for over 4 hours to have their needs addressed. That is more than the national average of 18.3%.

We believe that the Councils Health Scrutiny Board should consider performance reports like these – covering the public services most likely to be used by residents – at their monthly meetings.