The media are reporting that a woman arrested following a disturbing incident on Hob Moor last June has received a suspended prison sentence for the offence.
The woman is understood to have left the City.
101 busy
Meanwhile the police are facing a growing wave of crime reports which is leaving their control room very busy.
Below is the official North Yorkshire Police Online reporting system for those reporting non urgent crime that would prefer to do it this way rather than the 101 telephone reporting system.
Slow but noticeable progress this week in getting the backlog of grass cutting reduced.
Some of the grass near to Herman Walk has belatedly been cutbut mixed success on the Thanet Road Sports area
Meanwhile some Councillors have passed on a briefing that they have received about delays in emptying green waste bins. It is a shame that the Council have not been more candid with residents about their problems.
The briefing said,
Week Commencing 14th June 2021
Last week we undertook recovery operations of an evening and on Saturday and all garden waste that was scheduled to be collected on Monday 14th and Tuesday 15th June has been collected.
Garden waste that was outstanding from Wednesday 16th, Thursday 17th and Friday 18th will NOT be collected. Information has been placed on the web pages, at the contact centre and on social media to update this position. Residents have been advised to return their garden waste bins to their property and present them at their next collection. I apologise for any inconvenience caused.
All household waste and recycling (including missed bins were collected last week and on Saturday) and commercial waste collections are also up to date.
Week commencing 21st June 2021
We have a full garden waste service deployed today and for the rest of the week so the service is back to some sort of ‘normality’. Please note that garden waste bins missed on 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th June will be prioritised this week to ensure we collect all of these bins first.
Drivers update
In terms of HGV drivers, we have recently had one driver start with us with a further driver beginning on 5th July. Following our promotion on the radio/web, WWY have received more driver applications and we are hopeful that we will have a further 2 drivers provided to work with CYC (through WWY) in the next fortnight.
It is a shame that similar updates aren’t put on the Councils social media web sites.
We currently don’t know why there is such a backlog of grass cutting or who is making the decisions about what gets cut and when (agreed frequency is a minimum of one every 3 weeks). Some areas haven’t been mowed for 2 months.
Similarly residents are being told when the next application of weed killer will be made to gutters and hard surfaced areas. Weeds are now growing strongly following recent rain.
All in all, the Councils communications unit has proved to be ineffective in getting basic information, about public service standards and issues, across to the people who need the information most.
Come and listen to some of the best poets from Yorkshire and beyond at Finding the Words, our relaxed and welcoming poetry evening
Finding the Words with Kathryn Bevis, Ellora Sutton and Shash Trevett
Kathryn Bevis is Hampshire Poet 2020-21 and founder of The Writing School Online . Her poems have won several awards, including first prize in the Poets & Players and Against the Grain competitions. Kathryn’s work has been published and anthologised in print and online by: Nine Arches Press, iamb, Live Canon, Words for The Wild, Parthian Books, and The Fenland Poetry Journal. She now designs and delivers online Poetry for Wellbeing courses for adults in substance misuse and mental health settings, and in prisons. Kathryn is working towards her first collection.
Ellora Sutton (she/her) is a queer poet from Hampshire. She has won the Mslexia Poetry Competition, the Poetry Society and Artlyst’s Art to Poetry Award, and the Pre-Raphaelite Society Poetry Competition. Her work has been published by Poetry News, Ink Sweat & Tears, and Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal, amongst others. Her debut chapbook, All the Shades of Grief, was published in 2020 by Nightingale & Sparrow, and for the first three months of 2021 she enjoyed being poet in residence at Jane Austen’s House. She tweets @ellora_sutton, or you can find her at ellorasutton.com.
Shash Trevett is a Tamil from Sri Lanka who came to the UK to escape the civil war. She is a poet and a translator of Tamil poetry into English. She has collaborated with artists and composers and is a winner of a Northern Writers’ Award. Her pamphlet From a Borrowed Land will be published in May 2021 by Smith|Doorstop. She is currently co-editing (with Vidyan Ravinthiran and Seni Seneviratne) an anthology of Tamil, English and Sinhala poetry from Sri Lanka and its diaspora communities. Shash was the 2019 Apprentice Poet in Residence at Ilkley Literature Festival and is a 2021 Visible Communities Translator in Residence at the National Centre for Writing. She is a 2021 Ledbury Critic and a Board Member of Modern Poetry in Translation.
Parents and carers in York are being invited to attend a free drop in event at Acomb Explore Library later this month [Wednesday 30 June] to find out how they can use everyday activities to help their child develop.
City of York Council is working with the NSPCC on its ‘Look Say Sing Play’ campaign, which provides tips and hints on how parents and carers can help develop their child’s brain and strengthen their bond, to help them give their child the best start in life.
The campaign is based on extensive research which shows that every time parents talk, sing or play with their baby, they’re not just bonding, but also building the child’s brain connections.
Parents can pop in to the event at Acomb Explore from 11-1pm on Wednesday 30 June to get a free goody bag and chat to professionals, including health visitors, about they can help their child’s development.
They can also drop in from 2-4pm on the same day to take part in free activities with their children.
More information about Look Say Sing Play, including videos showing some of the activities in action, is available at www.york.gov.uk/LSSP
A further increase in the number of COVID patients being cared for by the York Hospital Trust has been announced today. There are now 7 patients being cared for.
There have been no further deaths. The cumulative toll remains at 593.
Test results
55 positive test results today. Brings the cumulative total up to 12.908
The number of cases in the City has increased from 175 to 189
Rate /100k population has risen to 89.74. It will exceed 100 tomorrow (Tuesday) and is expected to continue on an upward trajectory. It is currently increasing faster than is being seen in other parts of the region and nationally.
NB The peak infection rate during the Spring 2020 wave was the 96.9 seen on 5/5/20. Death rates were, however, much higher at that time.
Neighbourhoods
Vaccinations
1288 vaccinations were undertaken yesterday (Sunday)
Tests
5510 PCR tests were conducted during the week ending 16th June 2021
Of these, 3.2% were found to be positive. That is a reduction on the 3.3% positivity found during the previous period.
3769 “lateral flow” tests were also conducted on 20th June.
In a report to the Councils executive this week, officials report an increase in the debts of the Council.
It was not unexpected.
The reportreveals that the general fund debt increased from £110.1 million to £151.6 million last year.
£51.5 million in new loans were taken out with only £10 million paid off. Some of the new loans will attract interest payments for 20 years at rates of around 2%.
The Council’s average investment balance has fallen from £48.7m to £15.7 million.
By the end of the 2023/24 financial year, the borrowing requirement is expected to hit £355 million. Around 19% of the York Council taxpayer’s annual bill will then be used to service this borrowing (i.e. pay interest and redemption charges)
We doubt that the report will get much attention from either the Councils Executive or the responsible scrutiny committee. “Live now, pay later” has become a way of life for many local authorities.
York has at least avoided some of the catastrophic investment strategies seen in other places (failed local power companies, incautious property speculation etc).
York has, however, set up several arms length organisations including its own housing development company – reports on which have been thin on the ground recently. Against the background of a very buoyant housing market, that may not be a matter of immediate concern.
Forty-seven positive test results today. Brings cumulative total up to 12,853.
The number of positive test results found on Thursday has been adjusted to 50. That is the highest single day total recorded since 1st February.
The number of cases in the City has increased from 166 to 175
The rate /100k has risen to 83.09. It is now trending to reach 111.1 by Tuesday.
Neighbourhoods
Most infections are concentrated in areas where their are a large proportion of young people aged under 30. This includes some University dormitory areas.
A special vaccination centre has been set up at the University.
The authorities have provided little information about how many of the positive tests have been from people without symptoms (they quote the national figure of 1 in 3). There has also been no information published about the most likely transmission locations although this information should be available to the test and trace unit
Vaccinations
1441 vaccinations were undertaken yesterday (Saturday)
Over 600 of these were for first jabs for those aged between 18 and 24.
Tests
5186 PCR tests were completed during the week ending 15th June 2021.
Of these, 3.3% were positive. That represents an increase on the 3.0% positives found during the previous period.
1424 lateral flow tests were also completed on 19th June 2021
Infections rising
A list of the worst affected areas in the country has now been published. York is on the list along with Leeds.
