York 800 Flotilla sails back into view

The York Council has announced;

“City of York Council is delighted to announce today (24 July) that the York 800 flotilla, originally scheduled for Charter Weekend, will now take place on Sunday 26 August along the River Ouse in the city centre.

More details of the programme for the day will be available nearer the time on www.york800.com“

The national trading standards e Crime team based in York have issued a warning to Olympic fans after launching an investigation into the supply of ‘fake’ medals from an internet auction site. The medals, which cost up to £29 each, bear unauthorised copies of the five rings logos and are mocked up to resemble the real thing.
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Potential witnesses to a serious assault in a nightspot in York have been urged to contact North Yorkshire Police.

A19-year-old local man suffered a fractured jaw and facial injuries in an incident that occurred in the male toilets at the Tokyo club, Toft Green, between 3am and 3.30am on Sunday 15 July 2012.
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The Council are consulting on the future of the “footstreets”. They say;

We would like your views on ways of improving the operation of the footstreets (pedestrian zones) in the city centre.

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City of York Council’s Archive team are putting on a free exhibition at York Explore Library Learning Centre to explore 800 years of York’s civic history.

The exhibition comes after being awarded a grant of £9505 from Yorventure – an independent not for profit environmental body that gives grants to community and environmental projects through the Landfill Communities Fund with Landfill Tax Credits generated by Yorwaste.

The grant will be used to purchase three bespoke display units for inside the library, as well as four outside notice panels. The units will be designed to coordinate with the original Brierley furniture at the library, and build in sustainable oak and birch by local carpenters.

The exhibition will launch on 25 July and will run until 30 September along side this year’s medieval themed Big City Read. Volunteers from across the community have used the city’s unique archive of historical documents to tell the stories of men and women who have lived and worked in the city from the 13th to the 20th centuries.

With thousands of residents and tourists expected to visit York throughout the York Mystery Plays 2012 performances, City of York Council will be providing extra Park & Rides services to allow easier access to the shows.

During the performances that take place between 2 and 27 August, additional services will be provided at the Rawcliffe Park & Ride (route 2) directly outside Museum Gardens (where the performances are taking place).

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Trip to Wallander country

A Council committee will hear today from “Cabinet” member Cllr Tracy Simpson Laing about her “fact finding” trip to Jonkoping in Sweden. The Wallander of the York Council will have to do better than produce a political diatribe to convince residents that care services are under controlled, and fair, supervision.

For an annual report it stands out as a partisan and highly political view of social services. Everyone is to blame (LibDems, Government, etc) for failure…anyone but the Labour administration.

The report pointedly fails to even mention that the service out-turned with a net £1.567 million over spend in the last financial year. As the Cabinet learned a week ago, “In Adult Social Services increasing service demand for Independent Residential & Nursing Care and Direct Payments remains an issue, as well as new pressures in External Homecare and some delays in the Homecare and EPH business change programmes”. There was also an increase in the number of children in the Councils care.

Detailed figures reveal a gross £3 million overspend which was only partially offset by savings elsewhere.
• Independent Residential & Nursing Care (Overspend £1,393k)
• More customers taking up Direct Payments (Overspend £586k)
• External Homecare demand (Overspend £1,245k)
• Respite care (Overspend £187k).

Culpable delays were incurred in the summer and autumn of 2011 when Labour tried to appease its election paymaster (UNISON) by keeping services “in house” and continuing to endorse pay rates which were well above those in the private sector.

Only 7 out of 59 care staff took up a TUPE transfer when a care contract was privatised. The fate of the others remains largely unexplained.

A behind closed doors decision was taken to advertise the contract for the management of the new Lowfields Care Village but, apparently, with the Unions being given advice on how to organise an in house bid for the contract.

No details of the waiting lists for care services are given in the “Cabinet” members report.

Against that background, you would expect detailed scrutiny of a Cabinet member’s performance. Alas the Councils Scrutiny Committees are dominated by inexperienced Labour Councillors who will ensure that the boat is only rocked ever so gently.

…………and, of course, the sacking of another Cabinet member for incompetence is off the agenda with the Leadership having last week exhausted its alternative membership options.

The York Council continues to claim that the Susanna Gregory novel “Mystery at the Minster” “was specially commissioned for the Big City read“.

This seems unlikely as the book was first published in August 2011 and publicity material from that time made no reference to either the Big City Read or the York800 celebrations.

Nevertheless it is a good read and is deservedly recommended.

The Council says,

City of York Council’s Library and Archives service are inviting residents to meet the acclaimed author of a brand new book that aims to get the whole city reading together and talking about ‘Mystery in the Minster’.

‘Mystery in the Minster’ is a medieval-themed murder mystery and the seventeenth in Susanna’s bestselling series – of which over 100,000 copies have been sold. It features her regular character physician-cum-sleuth Matthew Bartholomew who finds himself in York. What starts as a dispute over land soon turns to murder…

This year’s chosen book is available from all of York’s 14 libraries and Explore centres from 26 July. What’s more, each book given away this year will contain a unique ‘bookcrossing number’ which readers can use on www.bookcrossing.com to enter comments on the book, as well as seeing where the book has been previously and keeping track of it once it’s been passed on.

Tickets to the launch event are free but booking is essential. Book online for all events at www.york.gov.uk/libraries or by calling into any library. Residents can also follow the events using twitter @yorklibrariesuk or facebook at www.facebook.com/ExploreYorkLibrariesandArchives.

The York Council will be responding this week to a national proposal that there should be no restriction on the number of taxi licenses that are issued in the City.

The so called “deregulation” is one of the proposals of a Law Commission report which is currently subject to consultation.

There is a concern that deregulation could lead to overcrowding at City centre taxi ranks.

The Councils propsed response can be viewed here
http://tinyurl.com/Taxi-changes-York