York Council Car parks: detailed income figures published

Following concerns about declining use of City centre car parks, the York Council has published details of the monthly income that it is receiving from each.

In total the York Council receives over £5 million from off street car parking charges each year.

Recent reports pointed to a “below budget” performance which was partially blamed on unreliable barrier equipment installed in July 2014 at the Marygate car park. The detailed figures now published, suggest that the 12 month rolling average income for Marygate saw use of the facility decline until as recently as August of this year.

It has yet to return to pre-barrier levels of use.

The Council’s policy on charging has been heavily criticised over recent years with the, then Labour controlled, Council imposing huge increases in prices – particularly for residents. A paid for “Minster Badge” was introduced but this has failed to attract the expected number of purchasers.

These factors were blamed for a decline in use – and the migration of shoppers to out of town retail outlets.

The Council is set to review its parking policy at a meeting being held on 28th January Before that, in December, it is expected to set its parking charges for the forthcoming financial year.

Discussion starts on grant funding of Community Centres in York

The report on how part of the grants for local Community Centres could be reinstated has been published.

Sanderson House community centre

The centres affected are located in Foxwood, Chapelfields, Bell Farm and Heworth.

A fifth – the Burton Stone Centre – was to have been sold off to a third party operator but this has fallen through. It continues – at least for the moment – to be run by Council employees, but without a volunteer user committee.

The Community Centres running cost grants (which totalled £140,000 in 2013) were stopped last year by the then Labour run Council.

It had been hoped that the new Council, having made £70,000 available to support the centres when it met in July, would allow for the reinstatement of some caretaker roles.

In turn this would have allowed the centres – which otherwise depend entirely on volunteers – to increase their opening hours.

A report to a meeting taking place next week offers three choices for the use of the funding. They are:

The Council could retain the £70k budget with no direct grant funding to the voluntary management committees. The budget would be used to maintain the condition of the five premises enabling funds to be directed to those buildings which have the greatest identified repair and maintenance requirements.
The Council could split the £70k equally across the five centres, offering them a £14k direct grant each.
A combination of options A and B to provide some direct grants, whilst retaining some of the budget for the Council to contribute to the repair and maintenance liabilities. A sinking fund would also be established to allow a planned approach to asset replacement.

Option (c) would reinstate only a £4000 a year grant to each of the five centres. See below for details

The rest would be syphoned off to pay for maintenance work at the buildings which are still owned by the Council. As landlord the Council would be responsible for these repairs anyway.

There is a suggestion that an “apprentice” be appointed – at a cost of £10,000 – to monitor the project.

Some people already feel that there has been too much interfering by Council officials in the work of the voluntary committees which work tirelessly to run the centres. Officials seem to want to weigh volunteers down with “service level agreements” and commitments which are simply too onerous for spare time volunteers to feel comfortable with.

We hope that “no strings” grants of at least £20,000 a year can be agreed for each centre. To allow for forward planning they should be guaranteed for the duration of at least the present Council (i.e. until 2019)

A decision on the grants will be taken at a meeting on Thursday, 3rd December, 2015 4.30 pm at West Offices. Residents may make written representations to the meeting and/or may register to attend in person and speak. (Telephone – (01904) 552062 Email laura.bootland@york.gov.uk)

Spending review – how it may affect York

Policing

There will be no cuts to government funding for the Police. North Yorkshire police however already employ fewer officers than they have budget for, so we hope those vacancies will be filled quickly now. What is less clear is what impact the Chancellors statement, that Police Commissioners would have flexibility to raise the police precept, will have locally.

Tax Credits

The Chancellor has scrapped plans to reduce working tax credits. The move has been welcomed by Local LibDem Cllr Sue Hunter

Jobs & housing

The York central site has been awarded “Enterprise Zone” status. This means all business rates growth generated by the Zone, will be kept by the relevant local enterprise partnership and local authorities for 25 years to reinvest in local economic growth. However, there are fewer planning controls in these Zones. The York Central site is expected to provide 2000 new homes and around 80,000 sq m of office space.

£50 million will be invested in the agri-tech centre at Sandhutton

Elderly care

The Chancellor has said that Council can increase Council Tax by 2% “to help pay for increasing elderly care costs”. This means that the Tories have abandoned their policy of freezing Council Tax. However, income for Council Tax is not hypothecated to individual services, so it remains to be seen whether the government will condition this power by ring-fencing social care expenditure.

The spending statement indicates that there will be increased funding available for the NHS and for Mental Health

Pensions

Basic state pension to rise by £3.35 next year to £119.30 a week

Schools

The statement says that big regional variations in grants to schools would be removed. Historically York schools have been more poorly funded than those in other areas.

Transport

The Chancellor has promised major capital investment including HS2 and electrification of the Trans-Pennine route.

However the revenue budget has seen major cuts so there is likely to be less for public transport subsidies and maybe road repairs.

Council Tax

As well as the proposed 2% increase this year, the proposals imply that York will retain more of its Business Rates (it has always been a net contributor to the national pool) but will continue to see reductions in government support grant.

The way that the York Councils budget has been funded has changed a lot over recent years.

Delay over Community Centre funding plans

One of the key policies of the new coalition Council was the restoration of grants to Council owned Community Centres.

Foxwood Community Centre

The centres (Foxwood, Chapelfields, Bell Farm, Heworth and Burton Stone/Clifton) lost their grants under the last Labour administration and there were fears that some would close.

In July the new Council identified £70,000 to help underpin the centres. The voluntary groups currently running the centres have managed to kept them open until now.

The Council had been expected to allocate the total budget to individual centres on 14^th September but unexplained delays have dogged the process since then.

Now it appears that the Councils Environment Executive member (Andrew Waller) has been debarred from making the decision which had been scheduled to be taken in November.

Instead Deputy Council Leader Keith Aspden will agree the allocations on 3^rd December.

The is still hoped is that enough money will be made available to allow a part time caretaker to be appointed at both the Foxwood and Chapelfields centres.

York Council “free” newspaper has cost nearly £40,000 so far this year

The “Our City” newspaper, published by the York Council, has racked up a bill of nearly £40,000 so far since July.

The total of £38,624 covers four editions the last of which will be delivered in January. All households are supposed to have a copy delivered free of charge.

Not all of the costs will fall on York Council taxpayers. Contributions have also been made by “partner” agencies such as the Police (although it is mostly public money in the end).

The newspaper content and design has been criticised for being “dull”. Copies can be downloaded from the Council’s web site (click)

In October copies of the newspaper were dumped in the communal areas of flats and clearly never reached the intended readers.

The suppliers includes Newsquest (publishers of The Press) who design and print the newspaper while the “Local Link” free advertising magazine undertakes delivery.

The editorial content is written “in house”.

The Council has failed to include the “cost per household” figure on recent editions (it works out at about 12p per taxpayer for each edition) as was agreed would be provided, on all Council literature, more than a decade ago.

While normally £40,000 might be regarded as a small bill for the (worthy) objective of keeping residents informed, the expenditure comes against a background of cheeseparing cuts to basic public services such as street cleansing and weed control.

The new Council didn’t openly debate its policy on public communications when it took office in May, so we do not know what relative priority it gives to the burgeoning use of social media – which provides up to date news each day – nor the plans to re-introduce a, more locally focused, “Ward Committee” newsletter.

To their credit many Councillors do produce their own newsletters – the LibDem version is Focus – which are published and delivered without any cost to taxpayers.

York Council facing £1.2 million over-spend

Concerns that NHS could land City taxpayers with £3 million bill

A report being considered by the Council next week reveals that it may overspend this year’s budget by £1.25 million. This is relatively small in percentage terms compared to previous years.

The forecast comes as the expenditure against budget for the period to September is revealed.

It is possible that a “Better Care Fund” budget, shared with the NHS, and intended to support adult social care services, may be raided to help fund a deficit run up by the Vale of York Clinical Commissioning Group.

This could leave a £3 million hole in the Council’s budgeted income.

The government is also consulting on reducing the Public Health budget for this year by £1/2 million.

The biggest pressures on the Council’s budget though comes from the large number of children in foster care.

The report says,

“The number of Children Looked After is unlikely to reduce in the foreseeable future, and York’s unit cost is already the lowest of all 150 Local Authorities nationally”.

The report also reveals:

The income from car parking was £91,000 below expectations. “The largest year on year % reduction was from Marygate car park (15%) where Pay on Exit is being trialed. This has been partly due to technical issues impacting on income levels”. (Incredibly the Council has separately announced that it will consider extending barrier operation to other car parks when it meets on 28^th Jan 2016)
A forecast income of £100,000 from fines levied by the use of ANPR cameras on Coppergate – inserted into the budget by the last Labour administration – has not been realised as the cameras have remained switched off. However, some Councillors are thought to be in favour of switching them back on again – watch this space!
The Council’s housing account is still forecast to have a surplus of £16.6 million at the end of the year.

York Council’s debts still a cause for concern

The latest finance figures released by the York Council show that over 13% of the annual Council Tax paid by York residents is being used to pay interest charges on the Councils borrowings.

This equates to payments of £20.25 per person per year.

The worrying trend is in the net debts level of the Council.

This is forecast to increase from £245 million this year to £285 million in 2018.

This figure which is concerning and reflects the fact that the present Council has yet to scrap some of the more extreme commitments that it inherited from the last Labour administration (e.g. the new swimming pool at Monks Cross, the “in house” development of the Guildhall annex site and the “bridge to nowhere” access for the York central site).

York Theatre Royal reopening delays to cost £3/4 million

The Theatre Royal will not reopen until 22^nd April.

That means it will have been closed for 47 instead of 27 weeks during its current restoration.

The delay has been caused by the unexpected discovery of archaeology remains including the foundations of the St. Leonards Hospital. Asbestos was also discovered in the back wall of the stalls.

The additional cost of the building works is put at £1/4 million but to this must be added an estimated loss in income of £500,000.

Origonally the restoration had been expected to cost £4.1 million.

The Theatre is hoping to persuade the Arts Council to help to make up the deficit although some subsidy from the York Council is also likely.

The news is a major blow to the Theatre which is one of the gems in York’s cultural crown. It does much to promote the City around the world with the recent “in Fog and Falling Snow” production featuring in a TV documentary only last month. The cast was mainly made up of York residents.

The adaptation for the stage of the Railway Children had its genesis in York. It is currently still running in London at the Kings Cross theatre.

York Council reveals housing benefit payments for “exempt” properties

D4NT09 Council Tax bill 2013/2014 for property dwelling band F with 25% discount for sole adult resident

The York Council has received 88 claims for housing benefits from people living in “exempt” properties in The City.

In total over £102,879 has been paid out so far this year.

Housing benefit payments for exempt property peaked at £181,760 in 2013

Properties can be exempted from Council Tax liability for a number of reasons.

In York many are occupied by students

A full list of possible exemptions is:
(more…)

Ward Committee grant application form published

The Council has recently published a grant application form for use by local voluntary Groups seeking help from a Ward Committee.

In some wards, decisions on allocations have apparently already been made but with little evidence that proper consultation was undertaken or that there was transparency in the decision process.

Click to download

September decisions
October decisions

In LibDem represented areas like Westfield, the funding available to the Ward Committees is expected to be spent on tangible improvements to the local environment.

Suggestions already received from residents include:

improving vehicle parking ,
enhancing public spaces,
providing (and servicing)
additional litter, poop scoop & salt bins, plus
more public seating,
street lights,
hard landscaping/paving &
better play equipment

We are still awaiting details of how the funds, announced in July (see below), will be allocated at a local level.

In wards like Westfield around £52,000 is available to spend before 31st March 2015

click to enlarge

« Previous
1
…
25
26
27
28
29
…
55
Next »