Westfield Primary School has undergone an £1m investment programme over the last two years, with £425,000 being spent this year on refurbishing the east wing.
Westfield school
The most recent phase of the refurbishment has focused on the area of the school which houses foundation stage children through to Year 1 pupils. It has included replacing 104 windows, re-roofing two sections and removing a 40-year-old temporary double classroom.
The work has not only improved the condition of the school, but has also increased the school’s ‘environmental credentials’ by reducing energy wastage.
Re-organising the classrooms has also enabled the school’s nursery pupils to be brought into the main building so, besides being supported by teachers, they’re now co-located with the other pupils.
Last year, the school’s dining room, roof and kitchen area underwent a £695,000 refurbishment, enabling children to spend less time queuing for food and more time eating a healthy meal. The former vast kitchen and dining spaces were reorganised, creating a pleasant, calming place to eat.
Parents and members of the community will be invited into the school during school holidays to experience the new space for themselves.
Lamara Taylor, Headteacher at Westfield Primary School, said: “The support we’ve had from the building team and City of York Council has been great and the scheme has led to considerable improvements to our school. The result has been amazing.
“I’m proud to show prospective parents around Westfield and the investment in the school will have positive benefits to the whole school community in the future. It’s all very exciting.”
Almost comatose leadership has allowed the York Council to
slip into a £20.2 million project which will see the Guildhall and neighbouring
development site converted into a business club and restaurant.
Weed infested, stonework stained, windows caked with dirt. The neglect of the Guildhall since 2012
Neglect of the Listed building since 2012 means that some of
the money will be needed to underpin parts of the old building while an new roof
will also be necessary.
On even the most optimistic of income estimates, York Council
taxpayers will be left with an annual bill of £574,000. Most of this is interest
charges on additional borrowings of £16 million.
The York Councils PR department has been busy working on a, very awkward looking, video seeking to justify the £20 million scheme. Their time might have been better spent updating residents on what is being done to address failings with the bin emptying service, overgrown paths etc.
There have been numerous occasions over the last 8 years where decisive leadership interventions could have reduced the risk to taxpayers. (click)
So now we move on to managing the contract and subsequently letting the newly created space.
The Council has committed itself to a £20 million cost envelope and an opening date in “spring 2021”.
The Councils record on major capital projects has not been good in recent years. The £42 million Community Stadium costs escalated from an original plan to invest £16 million and, 3 years after its target completion date, it is still not open.
Taxpayers will be monitoring progress on the Guildhall project with anxiety. Even after completion the authority will be faced with the task of renting out the new office space for £595,000 per annum. Failure to do so would mean an increased subsidy from taxpayers.
Ironically the Council may then find that it is in competition with itself as some of he office space being built at the Community Stadium site has still not found an occupier.
A road, access bridge and rail link essential to the development of York Central have moved a step closer with the announcement that City of York Council has selected John Sisk & Son as construction partner to deliver infrastructure to open up the site.
The contract, the first to be awarded, is for a detailed design review which will lead to a Reserved Matters planning application, due later this financial year.
The approved plans for the York Central site include proposals to build up to 2,500 homes, and a commercial quarter creating up to 6,500 jobs adding a £1.16 billion boost to the economy.
John Sisk & Son will work with the council and partners to refine and finalise the design of the first phase of essential infrastructure for the access bridge, the spine road and the NRM rail link. This will inform a decision by Executive to proceed with a costed construction programme for York Central enabling infrastructure.
Cllr Keith Aspden, Leader of the council, said; “The delivery of York Central is a once in a lifetime opportunity to build much needed affordable homes and new public spaces, attract better paid jobs, and create sustainable transport links for the city.
“We look forward to working with the York Central Partnership to secure further improvements to the scheme and with Sisk to begin this essential first phase of work in preparing the York Central site for development.”
Ian Gray, Homes England on behalf of York Central Partnership, said: “This is a really exciting and important milestone towards the delivery of our ambitious plans at York Central.
“A lot of hard work has been put in by York Central Partnership to get this far and this contract demonstrates our commitment to delivering the ambition and vision for the site.”
Paul Brown, Managing Director, UK Civils at John Sisk & Son, said:
“We are delighted to have been selected by the City of York Council to work with the stakeholders on this exciting project and to progress the design of some of the key enabling infrastructure. This is a project of huge ambition which will transform underused land in the centre of York into vibrant and distinctive residential neighbourhoods, cultural spaces and a high-quality commercial quarter. We are really excited to be able to bring our broad range of experience and commitment to a collaborative approach to the project.”
The budget necessary to commission this work was agreed by Executive in July 2019.
The York Central Partnership (YCP) members, Homes England, Network Rail, the National Railway Museum and City of York Council, have been working collaboratively for the past four years to develop proposals to unlock the potential of the brownfield site.
The partnership has secured planning approval, subject to the finalisation of the S106 agreement, for its outline planning application and assembled a potential £155m funding package for infrastructure works.
This includes £23.5m of a total of £37.2m from the West Yorkshire-plus Transport Fund and Leeds City Region Growth Deal, which will also fund the ambitious plans to transform the front of the railway station.
The West Yorkshire-plus Transport Fund has been part-funded through the Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership (LEP) Growth Deal, a £1 billion package of Government funding to drive growth and job creation across the Leeds City Region. The aim is to create around 20,000 new jobs and add £2.4 billion a year to the economy by the mid-2030s.
City of York Council has also received a Local Growth Fund contribution of £3.1m, from York, North Yorkshire and East Riding LEP and has agreed to borrow £35m to be repaid using retained business rates from the York Central Enterprise Zone.
The council’s £77.1m bid for the government’s Housing Infrastructure Fund is at an advanced stage, with a decision expected in the autumn.
The cost of the pavilion is controversial because it is being partly funded from monies generated by building on playing fields at Lowfield.
More modest changing facilities would have allowed the surplus to be used to provide an all-weather games area to replace both the facilities lost at Lowfields and also the Kingsway West children’s games area which the Council demolished earlier in the summer.
The Council has still not made any public announcement about the replacement games area which could be located on Thanet Road.
The Council has confirmed that it has not received any payments from the Spark container village as part of the “profit sharing” arrangements agreed nearly three years ago.
The payments were expected to help offset the £40,000 of taxpayers money spent in providing electricity and other services to the site.
Spark
The first payment was due in April
The company also haven’t yet provided the cladding required by a planning condition dating back nearly 2 years. The Councils planning department is coming under increasing pressure to take enforcement action.
The Spark owners were recently quoted in the local newspaper as wanting to continue to use the site when their current lease expires in June!
Its nearly 2 months since the York Council’s Chief Executive was last seen at West Offices.
Her diary is now published on “Open Data” and reveals that she had a meeting with the Strategic Director of Yorkshire Sport on 30th May. There is nothing in the diary since then.
In her absence on – what is assumed to be – sick leave, Ian Floyd will fill in. Ian Floyd is an able and experienced local government officer and he deserves the full support of the whole of the Council during what will be a taxing period
The Council also has a vacancy for a Director of Governance so the headquarters team looks particularly light at present.
It may be another 4 months before the Chief Executive’s position is resolved.
The additional costs of covering the absence are reported as being around £3000 a month.
A huge increase in borrowing is proposed in a Labour party amendment to the York Councils budget plans.
£2.5 million extra will be borrowed with more being taken from reserves currently earmarked to provide additional social housing.
They say, most of the extra money will be spent on reducing “damp” in Council housing. The Council had already let a contract for £2 million to address this issue on 11th May.
The Council has record debt levels with over 22% of what a resident pays in Council Tax set to be spent on interest charges by 2022.
Plans for a “Children’s Commissioner” on a fat cat £75k salary, appear to be equally misguided. The Council has a well-paid Executive Councillor with responsibilities in the same area.
Labour also plans to cut £1/4 million from the “safer communities” crime reduction budget. This is an extraordinary misjudgement of the problems that exist in parts of the City with anti-social behaviour, drug misuse, graffiti and vandalism on the increase.
Instead money would be spent on two additional talking shops; a “Human Rights Commission” and a “Carbon Neutral City Citizens Assembly” are proposed.
The only part of the Labour plan which might gain some support is a proposed investment of £40,000 in reducing, to one day, the target time taken to remove “fly tipping”. Some may, however, feel that the first step should be to improve bulky waste collection arrangements and reintroduce regular visits by “skips” to key estates.
The Council’s revised budget proposals will be debated tomorrow (Wednesday)
Council leadership set to prioritise road repairs, play
facilities, housing, energy efficiency and Social Care.
The new Council leadership has announced changes to the budget
that it inherited. As expected, extra investment in improvements to street
level public services are planned.
There will be extra investment in
More to be spent on road repairs
Removing graffiti
Additional Litter bins
Tree management
Crime reduction
Waste collection
Street environment (cleaning and community
projects)
Buses
Electric vehicle charging point maintenance.
The biggest investment will be £1 million spent on road repairs
and a further £1 million on cycling/walking improvements
There will be a £250,000 boost for children’s play facilities.
The Council will invest £1 million in speeding up housing modernisation
and a further £1 million on energy efficiency improvements
£22,000 is being taken for the reserves to improve children’s and adult social care standards.
Several of the proposals are less than transparent. We are told, for example, that the Council will “Re-purpose funding from the Leeds City Region Business Rates Pilot to strengthen our approach to inclusive growth, including child poverty, greening the high street and promote lifelong learning”
We think that there is unlikely to be rioting in the streets as a result of the Councils decision to discontinue the “digital immersive model” marketing project. There may be public unrest if the Council doesn’t publish its reports in plain English in future.
Also, the Council will fund “connections with communities most impacted by EU exit to better understand their needs, and to take forward the community hubs work initiated”
Four schemes are intended to be self-funding. They relate to
foster care, Special Education Needs and Disability pupils, Public Health and mental
health.
The proposals will be welcomed by many in the City. It will, however, take more than £1 million to get the City’s roads back into good order.
£4.25 million of the plan is capital investment, meaning higher debt charges in the future (and less to spend in the revenue budget).
The plans are likely to be criticised for failing to clearly identify the objectives of some of the changes with no detail given of how the success of the projects will be measured.
No KPIs are listed and there is no clear vision of how the City will look in 4 years’ time.
Residents may feel that prompt attention to reducing the costs of some inherited major projects is necessary, especially if demands on taxpayers in future years are to remain under control.
It really shouldn’t cost £35,000 to “ launch a public
Citizen’s Assembly on how the Council can best work in an open way”
The Council must become a “can do” rather than a “can talk” organisation.
Still it’s a start, and a better one than was managed by the
last two Council administrations.
The proposal will be discussed at a meeting taking place on 17th July
A full list of budget proposals can be read by clicking here
Full list of budget changesBudget changes list continued
320,000 pieces of chewing gum removed from pavements.
York Councillors will be considering a reporton Wednesday that reviews the work of the York BID. The, mainly business funded organisation, was formed in April 2016 and aims to improve the attractiveness of the City centre.
The report includes an impressive list of achievements. The blight
of chewing gum on footpaths is produces a particularly eye catching headline.
In addition, 961 pieces of graffiti and fly posters have been removed.
The BID ranger service has also helped to reduce anti-social
behaviour and address other criminal activities.
There has been a 1.9% increase in footfall in the City.
Last month the government, the Architectural Heritage Fund
and the National Lottery Heritage Fund announced a £62 million package of
support to breathe new life into historic high streets across the country, to
restore historic buildings, create new work spaces and cultural venues. As part
of the overall funding, £55 million had been allocated from the Future High
Streets Fund. We still hope to see York benefit from this type of
government support.
The York BID has been successful initiative and has made a real
difference to the quality of the City centre. It has been criticised for
drawing Council resources away from sub-urban centres like Acomb but overall the
BID is viewed positively.
There are ongoing issues with more improvements needed to the
streetscape – too many weeds and too much graffiti – and of course empty properties.
The latter in areas like Coney Street now look to be intractable problems, which
is why the governments attitude to the City is so disappointing.
Some underused sites and buildings – including those owned by
the Council – need to be redeveloped quickly now. The meeting on Wednesday will
hear from the Executive member with responsibility for “Economy and
Strategic Planning”. Members will no doubt be hoping to hear some positive news
about the use of empty property economic development activities in the whole of
the City.
We hope that corporate interests will similarly ensure that
prominent, but derelict, sites like that next to the Barbican will also now be
developed (or at least tidied up).
Overall the BID has had a successful 3 years and can look with
confidence to an extension of its mandate.
NB. “Make it York” is reporting separately on its activities click here to readtheir report
