The leader of City of York Council has outlined a coronavirus response, including business support and an emergency fund.
Council leader makes statement to Executive detailing city’s response
Council commits to emergency fund to support local residents, business and communities
Huge effort to deliver support package to businesses – including updating 4000 business rates accounts by the end of the week
City of York Council has announced that it will create its own emergency fund to support local residents, business and communities in response to the outbreak of Coronavirus, whilst acting swiftly to make sure residents and businesses can access the Government’s support packages as swiftly as possible.
The Leader of the Council, Councillor Keith Aspden, announced the fund at today’s Executive meeting (Thursday 19 March 2020), adding that fund will focus support to York’s residents, businesses and communities over the coming weeks, on top of any measures announced by the Government. Full details of the fund will be announced next week.
Councillor Aspden reiterated that the Council is continuing to work with the NHS and partners to respond to the outbreak of Coronavirus and that the Council is focusing resources where they are needed to ensure most services can continue to be delivered, with priority given to frontline services that keep our city moving.
Local ward funding is to be accelerated and used flexibly to help community organisations respond to local needs during the outbreak of coronavirus.
This source of funding is ideal for supporting local charities, community groups and other agencies delivering the support to residents in need.
Ward Councillors are being encouraged to work with their communities to identify needs and solutions and use their ward budgets accordingly. The Council will be as flexible and as responsive as we can in approving expenditure, so long as it complies with the council’s financial regulations.
The Council will be able to process applications very quickly to ensure that funding can be with the relevant community organisation immediately for use to support local residents.
Cllr Darryl Smalley, Executive Member for Culture, Leisure and Communities at City of York Council, said:
City of York Council is doing everything possible respond to the current situation, and the latest part of this is ensuring that every penny possible goes to those on the frontline in the coming weeks.
“Ward Councillors have been urged to consider how the ward budgets, particularly the Safer Communities Fund, can be deployed in a way that supports their communities through Coronavirus.
Ward committee funding will be as flexible as possible and any funds granted for date-specific activities will be extended until it is safe for them to be held.”
The scams take several forms which
include (so far):
·
Messages claiming to be
from HMRC offering a tax refund due to changes in the law around Covid-19,
recipients have to click a link which takes them to a fraudulent website
·
Messages claiming to be
from the Center for Disease Control or from the World Health Organisation.
These messages offer the recipient the chance to view a list of confirmed cases
within their local area by clicking on a link and making a Bitcoin payment.
·
Emails claiming to be
from a virologist sending an attached document with instructions on how to
avoid the Coronavirus. The attachment is malicious.
·
Fraudulent online sales
of masks and hand sanitiser which never materialise. If an online shopping
offer looks too good to be true, then it probably is.
Please do not click on links or open
attachments and take time to check that the email is from a legitimate source.
Please be aware that fraudsters go to great lengths to make their
communications with you look genuine.
As Covid-19 continues to spread,
fraudsters are likely to continue using the anxiety it generates to trick
people out of their personal data and hard -earned money. You can find more
information about the scams listed above online. The BBC have summarised these
scams in this article https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51838468
More than ever, as a community you
need to be aware of those in your locality who are elderly, live alone and who
are vulnerable. Please look after and support each other
A Council meeting which was to have taken place next week (now cancelled) would have considered thehigh costs of home to school transport. The council has a budget for this service of #2.78 million although the meeting would have heard that this is overspent by #525,000.
Free transport is provided for pupils who are attending their catchment school, and who live more than 2 miles (primary pupils) or 3 miles (secondary pupils) from home. Most of these pupils use dedicated bus services. Those in receipt of free school meals may also benefit from the use of a bus pass.
Special Educational Needs (SEN) children also get free transport. This includes those with an Education Health Care Plan. Many of these journeys are provided by taxis companies.
Although it remains unclear how many pupils will be continuing to attend their local school (the children of key workers certainly will), it is likely that some free taxi capacity will be available over the coming weeks.
Hopefully this capacity might be used to ease the burden of those
restricted to their own homes as a result of the current corona virus threat.
The delivery of proscriptions and shopping are important services which might usefully be provided by taxi
NB. On a similar level, local supermarkets are now advertising for temporary staff to supplement their shelf stacking and home delivery teams. Possibly good news for some self employed workers who might need a short term job?
The following changes will be introduced from this Sunday 22 March
PARK & RIDE
Park & Ride services will run every 15 minutes instead of the current 10 minute intervals. Services will start and finish at normal times We will be producing a specially-printed timetable which will be posted at P&R stations and stops for customers.
CITY & UNIVERSITY SERVICES
Sundays: Will operate a normal Sunday service until 2000, after which evening services on 1, 4, 6, 66 will operate at hourly intervals.
Monday – Friday: Will operate a Saturday Service with additional early morning journeys Monday to Friday, evening services on 1, 4, 6, 66 will operate at hourly intervals after 2000.
Saturday: Will operate a normal Saturday service until 2000, after which evening services on 1, 4, 6, 66 will operate at hourly intervals.
We are advising customers to check for updates on the First York Twitter feed and the company’s website https://www.firstgroup.com/yorkwhich also has customer information about Coronavirus. Detailed times will be published shortly.
Support for vulnerable people
To help meet residents’ needs, particularly those most at risk or isolated from communities, the Council has created a help line and support.
Those vulnerable residents who do not currently have any access to support, but who need help because of impact of COVID-19, are asked to email our Community Support Coordinators at covid19help@york.gov.uk or call 01904 551550 for assistance.
Volunteering
Thank you for sharing the messages regarding volunteering, we hope that you can continue to do so. We are asking that people register their support by emailing volunteering@york.gov.ukor calling 01904 551550.
We will ask for details of their skills and capacity, match them to an existing voluntary group or train them ourselves, coordinating with city groups and council requirements, manage them to deliver support where it is needed.
We have a free post address & will write letters to anyone who is isolated & doesn’t use the internet but still needs to be connected! Our Freepost address is: Healthwatch York, FREEPOST RTEG-BLES-RRYJ 15 Priory Street YO1 6ET
Fenwicks
We have therefore taken the very difficult decision to temporarily close all Fenwick stores to the public from 6pm on Thursday 19th March until further notice
Tesco
As from Thursday 19 March
1. Only 3 items per customer on every product line 2. All meat, fish, deli counters and salad bars closed 3. All stores close at 10pm 4. Monday, Wednesday & Friday 9am – 10am – elderly customers only except in Express stores 5. To free up slots for vulnerable people nd who normally shop on line or click and collect please consider shopping in store to free up slots 6. Will be encouraging card payment and introducing distancing measures at checkouts
The leader of City of York Council has outlined a coronavirus response, including business support and an emergency fund.
Local ward funding is to be accelerated and used flexibly to help community organisations respond to local needs during the outbreak of coronavirus. 