Council details support available for local businesses

The York Council issued information for local businesses earlier today. They promise to update it regularly as national announcements are being made with increasing frequency.

For example the closure of restaurants and pubs mean that many may now wish to trade on a takeaway/home delivery basis.

The Council recently substantially increased its debt burden when it bought various retail buildings in the City so it has a vested interest in ensuring local businesses survive the current problems!

Click here for a link to the full statement

COVID-19 guidance for Parents and Carers in York

Link to fuller information below

Following the Prime Minister’s announcement this week, City of York Council has been working with the Department for Education and with schools and early years settings across York to set out the plan for our children’s education across the coming months.

As you will know, many schools and settings are impacted by reduced staff levels as individuals follow government advice to self-isolate, to help slow the spread of COVID-19. In response to this, schools and settings must remain open whilst managing lower numbers of staff.

Schools, colleges, nurseries, childminders and other registered childcare settings will remain open for children of key workers and vulnerable children where they can.

It is important to note that all childcare and educational settings remain safe places for children. So the fewer children making the journey to school, and the fewer children in educational settings, the lower the risk that the virus can spread and infect vulnerable individuals in wider society.

The Government is advising that ‘every child who can be safely cared for at home should be’. Their latest information for parents and carers is available online

Full statement about the situation in York click here

Chapelfields recycling being collected tomorrow (Saturday)

Council waste service update Friday 20 March

“All scheduled recycling waste collections have been made.

We were unable to collect household waste from Knapton House, Rawcliffe due to a blocked access.

We’ve recollected all outstanding recycling except from collections in Chapelfields.

We’ll collect any remaining Chapelfields recycling on Saturday 21 March. Please present your containers for collection by 7.00am”.

Plea to get empty Council space ready to meet hospital needs

York Councillor Mark Warters has suggested that empty York Council owned properties should be cleared, cleaned and used to provide additional hospital space should it be necessary.

Available empty properties include the brand new James House (which was due to open this month), Oakhaven and Willow House. The latter are former care homes.

The properties could be used to supplement existing NHS hospitals. It is possible that additional space will be required for services such as pre and post illness infection testing.

Separately, it has been suggested that the Council be ready to reintroduce regular skip visits to local neighbourhoods. These would reduce the pressures on waste collection services where staffing levels are currently under pressure.

Skips visited many estates until about 5 years ago when the service stopped.

Their return could provide an alternative if uncollected waste causes a public health concern.

The Council are recruiting waste collection drivers and loaders now. Find out more by calling 01904 554234 or visiting www.workwithyork.co.uk/jobs

York Council recruiting more drivers and loaders for waste collection teams

City of York Council is bolstering all its front line teams together so that it can continue providing essential services across the city, including collecting your household waste (black bins), recycling boxes, cleaning York’s streets and collecting litter bins, carrying out pothole repairs and maintaining public toilets.

Unfortunately, we have experienced a reduction in our frontline workforce and this is having an impact on some services, including recycling collections. The council is doing everything it can to ensure collections continue and is working weekends to collect missed recycling where possible.

To make sure services can keep running we need to recruit more drivers and loaders in our waste services team so we have enough people ready and able to do the job.

We’re working with Work With York to recruit drivers and loaders now. Find out more by calling 01904 554234 or visiting www.workwithyork.co.uk/jobs/

Cllr Paula Widdowson, Executive Member Climate Change, said: “It’s really important that we keep essential services running across the city such as household waste collections. We’re doing our best and have tried and tested measures in place, such as we did during Storm Dennis. But the reality is that these services like many others will face significant challenges. So we’re calling out for anyone who is physically fit, available and wants a temporary job. We want to help you so please contact Work With York and we’ll get you on our books and into our team as soon as possible.”

These are unprecedented times and this will mean some non-essential services will need to be temporarily suspended so that we can redeploy all our staff into keeping essential services running.

During Storm Dennis and Storm Ciara front line teams were redeployed into different services so that they could focus on protecting the city. This meant they had to ‘down tools’ temporarily on other work, and the same thing will happen again here.

As works are almost complete on the repaving scheme for Stonegate and the roadworks on Monkbar, we are aiming to complete these as planned. Other non-essential roadworks schemes will be temporarily suspended.

Check when your bins will next be collected, get the latest service updates and order a new bin – all online! www.york.gov.uk/waste

Corona Virus update – 20th March 2020

List of “Key workers” issued by government

Sainsburys

Details of Sainsburies assisted shopping schemes can be found via this link

Volunteer and Help Scheme

City of York Council are working with the many kind-hearted volunteers and with the established voluntary sector to recruit, train and deploy volunteers to support the most vulnerable in the city who do not have access to any help.

Residents who would like help and volunteer are being asked to sign up to volunteering@york.gov.uk or call 01904 551550, or go to www.york.gov.uk/COVIDVolunteering. The Council will ask for details of their skills and capacity, match them to an existing voluntary group or train them, coordinating with city groups and council requirements, managing them to deliver support where it is needed.

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.

As the health and safety of our residents is our priority, this structured and safe approach to volunteering is to ensure people get the support they need in a co-ordinated and safe way.

Image may contain: possible text that says 'IE ALDI ALDI WE ARE RECRUITING Anyone looking for work during this difficult time, here at Aldi we have fixed term contracts that we can offer. If you are interested, please send me a message on here with your contact number or drop your CV into a local Aldi store and we will be in touch.' — UPDATE: We have been overwhelmed by the amazing response to this post. We currently have filled all vacancies however have a waiting list running in the background should any other opportunities open up