Top Police officers – nominations requested

North Yorkshire Police Authority is asking the public to nominate Police Officers and Police Community Support Officers from each Safer Neighbourhood Command area for the North Yorkshire’s Safer Neighbourhoods Awards 2011.

The Officers awarded the overall title of North Yorkshire’s Safer Neighbourhood Police Officer and Police Community Support Officer 2011 will be put forward for the national awarding scheme as administered by the magazine ‘Jane’s Police Review’.

These awards are an important way of recognising the essential positive contributions that North Yorkshire Police’s team members make every day to their communities and are judged on the basis of personal skills, local initiatives to combat crime and the officers working relationships within their neighbourhoods.

Nomination forms can be;
• Downloaded from the North Yorkshire Police Authority website www.nypa.gov.uk/sna11
• Requested from the Authority Support Unit 01765 641839 or
• Requested from your local Safer Neighbourhood Team in person or through the non-emergency number 0845 60 60 24 7

Latest cycling statistics for York

Key York cycling statistics results from 2010:

• Overall cycling levels are up on a baseline year of 2008 by between +10% and +16%.

• A larger percentage increase is generally seen on the on-road sites +15% compared to off road +10% .

• Limited surveys of bridges have shown a +16% increase with Millennium Bridge being the busiest river crossing.

• There is only limited data (2 years) available for the more minor off road routes including a cordon based around Clifton Moor. These show a small decrease of –1% in cycling numbers 2009 to 2010.

• Some 80% of commuting cycling trips make use of on road facilities, 20% use the off road (mainly riverside) routes to access the city centre.

• Blossom Street is the busiest on-road radial cycle route (1775, 12-hour two way flow) followed by Bootham (1550, 12-hour 2 way flows).

• Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the busiest cycling days whereas Sunday is the quietest.

• Hob Moor and Cinder Lane show high levels of cycling during peak periods, 70% of trips during the peak, 30% off peak. In comparison Naburn Bridge has a more even split with 53% during peak 47% off peak – more leisure cycling.

More homes for rent

City of York Council, Yorkshire Housing and the Homes and Communities Agency have agreed a deal to buy two private housing developments that had stalled due to the poor market conditions.
The Rise at Pately Place, Acomb, was to provide 23 apartments for open market sale, but following the credit crunch several housebuilders were unable to complete the homes leaving an unfinished building development in the hands of the receivers.
The original planning permission for the scheme was granted under the pre-2005 affordable housing policy, where developments under 25 homes did not have to provide affordable housing. However, all 23 homes will now be available at affordable rents through Yorkshire Housing. Six of the homes are prioritised for council and housing association tenants who would like to ‘downsize’ from a family
house to an apartment releasing larger homes for families on the housing waiting list.
Yorkshire Housing has also bought 27 apartments at Birch Park, Huntington, 10 of which will also be prioritised for tenants wishing to downsize. Birch Park initially had 43 affordable homes secured under the council’s affordable housing policy but the development stalled in 2010 because of the lack of sales on the open market. By working with the housebuilder, work has progressed, and 102 of the homes are now for affordable rent or discount sale, increasing the scheme’s affordable housing from 22 per cent to 50 per cent.
”This is a great example of the council working with its partners to ensure that developers are able to keep building in difficult market conditions as well as providing high-quality new affordable homes. Creating affordable housing has provided developers with the certainty of sales and enabled them to continue the development against a backdrop of a challenging private housing market”

Lincoln Court

There are still some parking issues to be resolved in this part of Ascot Way.
The car park will be marked out this year, which hopefully will ease some of the conjestion, also a ‘resident only parking’ sign will be installed.

The truth about Policing

Some alarmist literature has been circulating in the area claiming that Police patrols are being cut. That isn’t true in Westfield although there has been a police reorganisation which sees the “Neighbourhood” and “Reactive” policing teams now headquartered at the Acomb Police station.

Our Neighbourhood policing team continues to be:

PC  Colin Park – Gale Lane, Foxwood and Woodthorpe 

PC  Mark Antonelli – Chapelfields, Kingsway West and Dringhouses

 PCSO Chris Simpson – Chapelfields 
PCSO Grace Holohan – Front Street 
PCSO Laura Nunnen – Gale Lane/Cornlands Road (inc. York High) 
PCSO Chris Upton – Kingsway West 
PCSOs  Richard Tempest & Stacey Gibson- Foxwood

 Lindsey Stamp is the local Sergeant and Phil Cain the Inspector

You can contact the Neighbourhood Policing team by telephoning 0845 60 60 24 7

Residents who wish to report an incident in person can visit the Acomb Police station.

The current desk opening hours – which is manned by volunteers – at the Police station on Holgate Road are:

Monday 10:00am – 12:00 noon

Tuesday 2:00pm – 4:00pm

Wednesday 6:00pm – 8:00pm

Friday 2:oopm – 4:00pm

Saturday 10:00am – 12:00 noon

Closed Thursday and Sunday

The truth about winter fuel payments

  1. The Winter Fuel Allowance is continuing at exactly the same level as previously: £300 for households with someone over 85 and £200 for households with someone over 60.

    2.  

  2. The ADDITIONAL payments of £50 for households with someone over 60 and £100 for households with someone over 85, which were introduced in the 2008 budget and extended in the 2009 and both 2010 budgets will not be continued for this winter.

    3.  

  3. The Comprehensive Spending Review permanently increased to the rate of Cold Weather Payments to £25 per 7 day cold period (from £8.50).

The increase in CWP was a temporary measure introduced in the previous Government’s “energy package” for winter 2008/9, later extended in September 2009 for winter 2009/10. It was widely expected that this increase would not be continued in the Spending Review, given that Payments the previous winter cost the Government more than six times the amount they had budgeted. However, the Spending review surprised many by making this increase permanent.  

When introduced in 2008 the increase in Winter Fuel Allowance was described as “an additional one-off payment”. 

 Winter Fuel Allowance is quite inefficient as it is paid to everyone over 60 regardless of income and whether or not it is actually cold. They are also paid to British pensioners living in other European Union countries.

On the other hand Cold Weather Payments are much more qualified. They are paid only to pensioners on low incomes, for each 7 day period in the which the temperature is consistently below zero.

 

 

Pensions increase

We’ve had a number of enquiries about the new inflation linked state pension entitlements.
Minister for Pensions Steve Webb said: “We’ve taken a decision to restore the link with earnings and increase the basic State Pension by the highest of prices, earnings or 2.5 per cent. This triple guarantee will ensure that pensioners can expect a decent offering from the state in retirement.”

The Basic State Pension will increase by £4.50 to £102.15. Pensioners on a low income will benefit because most people who receive Pension Credit will get a £4.75 increase in guarantee credit. Cold Weather Payments will be permanently increased from £8.50 to £25.

The majority of working age benefits will increase by 3.1 per cent.

The new benefit rates will apply from the week beginning 11 April 2011.