Help shape York’s new community woodland

City of York Council says it is “seeking the views of residents and local organisations on its plans to create an extensive community woodland area near Knapton”.

The project got off to a poor start with behind closed doors decisions eventually committing the Council to purchase farming land valued at around £2 million for the forest.

No business case was ever presented which compared the financial and environmental benefits of a forest with the existing food production use or indeed more obvious uses in support of environmental challenges.

The survey includes questions on the 194-acres of land to the West of York, including “suggesting a name for the new area“, which sounds slightly patronising to us. The important decisions have already been taken but if you think that Knapton Wood should be called Sherwood Forest North then please let us know!

The council says, “As part of its commitment to creating a cleaner, greener city and its ambitious target of reaching net zero carbon by 2030, the council plans to plant 50,000 trees on the site by the spring of 2023. As well as acting as a ‘carbon sink’, the green space will boost the health and mental wellbeing of local people by giving them somewhere to exercise, spend time outdoors in nature and a place for quiet contemplation. It will be an important wildlife habitat, enhancing biodiversity in York, as well as creating new green jobs and volunteering opportunities, helping to boost the development of green skills”.

In recent months the council has completed a detailed land character assessment to explore the site’s existing flora and fauna, landscape, soil types, drainage features and access points. This process has given the council a good understanding of the opportunities and constraints presented by the site, and helped to shape a series of different design concepts showing how the woodland could look.

Residents are now being asked to share their views on the design concepts so that their feedback can help shape the council’s plans for the site, as well as offer an insight into the role that residents and local groups can play in its creation and ongoing management. As a part of the consultation, residents are also invited to suggest possible names for the new woodland that reflect the heritage of the local area and tie in with the project’s ambitions.

Pay on Exit introduced in Marygate and Coppergate

From this week, Marygate and Coppergate Centre Car Parks (formally known as Piccadilly) now offer new ‘pay on exit’ car parking.

We think that this is a step forward but the top priority remains to improve digital signage and communications to prevent unnecessary trips by drivers seeking parking spaces. That is particularly important at these two car parks which are accessible only by awkward routes.

It is several years since the Council switched of some of its advance car parking space availability signs. A promise that available space information would be integrated into “Sat Nav” systems has not yet materialised., although this si common on electric vehicle charging platforms

The result is unnecessarily long journeys with all that entails in terms of extra pollution.

So now the City of York Council, in partnership with York BID, have introduced the new ‘pay on exit’ equipment, which has been upgraded to enable customers to pay for parking as they leave the car park, in a hope to improve the customer experience.

The new ticketless systems will enable residents and visitors to pay for parking as they leave, rather than in advance.

A successful ‘pay on exit’ trial was undertaken in Marygate car park back in 2016 and the new system has now been expanded to the Coppergate Centre car park too.

The new system uses ANPR cameras to provide ticketless parking at both car parks. ANPR cameras will read the car registration plate on entering the car park. When visitors leave, all they need to do is go to the payment machine and type in their car registration plate.

Blue badge holders are able to scan their barcode or QR code for free or discounted parking at the Coppergate Centre car park. At Marygate, where designated disabled parking bays are outside the car park and occupied, blue badge holders wishing to park inside the car park are able to scan their barcode or QR code for free or discounted parking.

ANPR cameras will read the car registration plate on leaving the car park and all visitors need to do is pay any required charge for their stay.

The ticketless parking system will recognise that payment has been made and the barrier will raise automatically to allow drivers to exit.

The introduction of ANPR systems mean car park scratch cards are no longer able to be used in the car parks.
If anyone holds a parking permit for a car park where ANPR ticketless parking is in place, they’ll still be able to use the car park as normal. To find out more on this visit the page on the council website.

It’s hoped that the ‘pay on exit’ system will be rolled out across other city car parks.

Please note: Marygate car park currently has reduced capacity during the important Environment Agency works taking place in the area, and larger vehicles will be operating/using the narrow access road.

The new pay on exit payment systems have been introduced as the new national restrictions change from 12 April to include:

Non-essential retail reopening
Outdoor hospitality is allowed
Personal care premises such as hairdressers and nail salons can resume
Libraries, community centres and indoor leisure facilities can reopen (but only for use by people on their own or in household groups)
The rule of six or two households still applies and we can only spend time with those we don’t live with outside.

Restrictions remain in place, which means you will still need to sanitise your hands, wear face coverings and keep socially distanced.

The council is continuing to support local businesses and has prepared for the next stage of lockdown rule easing on 12 April. Extra measures introduced in the city will include:

The installation of temporary public toilets, additional litter bins and additional cleaning taking place in the city centre
extending the Covid Support Marshalls programme until the end of June
submitting planning applications required for temporary managed outdoor spaces to help people see friends and family safely
making it easier for people to get tested, offering a collect option at our testing sites and opening up symptom-free testing to all adults and children of secondary school age and above.

Coronavirus York updates; 14th April 2021

Deaths

There were no additional hospital deaths announced today

Test results

Following further retrospective changes, the cumulative case number total in York is now 12,169

The number of cases has fallen from 28 yesterday to 21 today

As forecast, the rate per 100k population figure has fallen back to 9.97. It is expected to remain around 10 for the remainder of the week.

The case reduction profile continues to mirror the trend seen in May and June of last year. Then too, there was an occasional spike in infection rates.

Infection rates at regional and national levels remain stable

Neighbourhoods

Only two neighbourhoods in York (Clifton Without/Skelton and Clifton North) have more than 2 cases.

Vaccinations

Tests

3887 PCR tests were carried out in York during the week ending 9th April

Of these, 0.6% were positive. This compares to a positivity rate of 0.7% on the previous day.

1633 “lateral flow” tests were also conducted on 13th April.

Hospitals

Bed occupancy at local hospitals remans stable