Charities to miss out as York Council set to turn down rate relief applications

Foxwood and Chapelfields community centres to get relief

There are some surprising omissions from the list of organisations in the City who will miss out on discretionary rate relief when the Council Cabinet meets tomorrow.

York and District Indoor Bowls club set to get Rates relief

Most have been rejected because they do not have an “equalities” policy, haven’t completed a community impact assessment or have reserves of over £10,000

Amongst those affected are:

Acorn A R L Club
Dringhouses Sports & Social Club
York Cricket & Rugby Union Club
Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust (New Earswick swimming pool)
Huntington Community Centre
Naburn Village Hall
Hopgrove Playing Fields Association
Dunnington Reading Room (Village Hall)
Stockton On Forest Village Hall
Yorkshire Air Museum
Heworth Without Community Centre
Haxby & Wigginton Youth & Community Centre
York CVS (Clifton)

A full list can be viewed by clicking here

A list of organisations recommended to get rate relief can be viewed by clicking here. It includes the Foxwood Community Centre who will not have to pay £398 in rates, Chapelfields Community Association (£2,430), while the York and District Indoor Bowls club on Thanet Road gets relief of £3,405.

York Council heading for £1.3 million overspend?

A report being considered next week suggests that the York Council could over spend its budget this year by £1.3 million.

Coppergate – York Council failure, to win appeal against unlawful fines issue, could plunge it into a financial crisis

The – much delayed – half year report does not include any deficit which may arise from outstanding issues on the Coppergate/Lendal bridge fine refund policy.

Other areas of concern identified in the report include

Waste There is a forecast overspend of £98k due to lower than budgeted income from commercial waste, £100k shortfall in income from garden waste subscription, £100k due to the forecast shortfall in dividend from Yorwaste and £233k pressure at Household Waste and Recycling Centres primarily due to lower than expected income from charges
Car Parking There is a continued shortfall from parking income (£408k) and “ongoing monitoring will be required to assess the impact of the current parking initiatives, including the charges for Minster Badges, the free parking introduced in late June and pay-on-exit at Marygate”.
Social Care There is a significant projected overspend of £864k within the Elderly Persons Homes budgets.

A separate report identifies problems with the Councils capital investment programme.

Failure to move ahead with the reuse of the Guildhall means that £350,000 of “critical” repairs will now be needed.

And a major problem is arising with the Councils existing Elderly Persons Homes. These were supposed to have closed by now having been replaced by the new care village at Lowfields. But that project is 3 years behind schedule and the existing buildings will need to be patched up at a cost of £500,000!

**The report ominously warns “existing EPH’s are currently in need of renovation, some aspects of which are threatening their ability to pass Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection”.**

Guildhall

The future of the Guildhall and nearby buildings was last discussed in July 2013.

In a controversial decision the Labour Cabinet decided to allocate £400,000 towards developing a business case to create a “Digital Media Centre” on land to the side of the old Guildhall building.

The report at the time relied heavily on plans to get Lottery funding for the project. Such funding has never materialised and now a Council report to be considered next week reveals the costs and obstacles to the plans.

Proposed layout click for floor plan details

The Council has published details of how a new Guildhall might be reconfigured (right).

Apart from the small matter of hijacking the historic public building for use by a special interest group, an additional floor could be added to the south annex to form a restaurant and bar.

Just what that part of York doesn’t need!

There are no guarantees of continued casual access to the Guildhall which is an important part of the City’s heritage and tourist offer.

However it is the “business case” which will raise most eyebrows.

There isn’t one!

As previously reported, the council is being recommended to invest £9.2 million in the development. The capital costs break down like this:

Capital costs. click to enlarge

Although the Council claims that £4.6 million could be repaid from rental income, no projected revenue budget has been provided.

There is no indication of the potential rental prices and no anchor tenants have been identified.

The complex wouldn’t even open until 2018.

All in all, the way that this has developed looks very similar to the muddled thinking that linked – in Council official’s minds – the need to lose the costs of running swimming pools by aggregating them into the Community Stadium contract.

The result was 2 years of delays, while a £12 million fully funded plan for a stadium ballooned into a £38 million – high risk – mega scheme, producing an additional £8 million bill for taxpayers.

York simply can’t afford this reckless approach to its economy or to the prioritisation of its limited resources.

The scheme should be scrapped before good money joins the hundreds of thousands of pounds already wasted.

Instead the Council should look to sell on the non listed parts of the site to the private sector and negotiate a zero risk option for taxpayers.

That might involve some provision for digital arts but it might also mean residential units in what is a prime site or failing that some retail/hotel use (or a combination of all of these).

The resultant capital receipt could then be used to maintain the Guildhall Listed buildings to a good standard, to ensure its continuing role as the civic centre of the City and provide a fulcrum point valued by all residents not just the techno elite.

York Council set to increase charges by 3 times inflation rate from Jan 1st

Labour have published a list of the increases in charges that they intend to make from the end of the month.

Bulky waste removal charges increase to £40.

Most are around 5% (compared to the current inflation rate of 1.3%)

But there are some huge increases included.

The Burton Stone Community Centre hire charges are set to increase by 25% (main Hall). There will be a suspicion that this increase is a further attempt to drive out users who have already petitioned against the Councils plans for the centre.

Bulky household waste collection charges will get a 9% hike. It will cost £40 to get rid of up to 10 bulky items. Again this may be connected with Labours plans to charge for green bin emptying and to reduce the frequency of bin collections.

A full list can be seen by clicking here. No consultations on the proposals have taken place and the Council’s papers don’t include any indication of the number of users which each service has.

The council claims that the price increase will raise additional income of £146k in 2015/16. This is mainly from Bereavement Services (£88k) and Registrars (£25k).

Labour will consider further increases in prices in January when car parking, care services and planning charges will be amongst those under consideration.

Increased charges. Click for full list

York Council still dithering – “spend, spend, spend” strategy to continue?

The election of a new Leader doesn’t seem to have brought much realism to the York Council Labour Group.

True new Leader Williams is sacking 2 members of the Cabinet – which will operate with 6 members in future – in a gesture towards financial prudence. At the same time he is trying to “bounce” residents and opposition Councillors into accepting a £9.2 million scheme aimed at providing new offices, a riverside walkway and a restaurant on a site adjacent to the Guildhall site.

Williams slipped out the announcement to the local newspaper 24 hours before the agenda documents for a hastily convened special Cabinet meeting (scheduled to take place on 16^th December) are due to be published.

York Guildhall

It means that residents can’t even view the business case for the project at the moment.

…and there will be minimal time for consultation before the Cabinet signs off £500,000 in expenditure on design work for what it describes as a “digital media centre”.

We’ll reserve comment on the project until the full business case has been published, but if it is as lacking in detail as similar proposals – to invest £8 million in replacing the Waterworld swimming pool and £10 million on a bridge into the York central site – then we will know that the new Council is as financially imprudent, as the Alexander regime was reckless.

York Taxpayers – and their children – could be paying over £2 million a year just servicing the debts on these “vanity” projects.

£30,000 to do a job part time?

Meanwhile the new Labour Leader is likely to be asked to make clear his intentions about how much time he could be expected to spend on York Council work if he were to become the its Leader on Thursday.

A full time £30,000 a year salary has been attached to the post since local government reorganisation in 1997.

The expectation is that the Council Leader will be putting in around 50 hours of work each week,

Some of the holders of the post have worked longer hours. ……but Cllr Williams has, so far, declined to confirm that he will be giving up his (day) job with Yorkshire Water.

Failure to do so would be to short change York Council taxpayers (or Yorkshire Water customers).

So he needs to make his intentions clear before Councillors are ask to endorse his nomination.

Big Community Energy Switch sign up

City of York Council is once again inviting residents to sign up to the Big Community Energy Switch, which could help them save on average £169 on their gas and electricity bills.

The sessions will take place in various locations throughout the city during December and January. Residents who would like to find out more about switching are asked to bring a fuel bill along with them.

The council and iChoosr held their first scheme between December 2013 and February 2014. A total of 751 York residents signed up, along with 36,000 people across the UK. Average annual savings for those York residents who switched was £169!

Drop-in sessions where people can register with the help of council staff are taking place on:

Friday 12 December 2014

Tang Hall Community Centre, Fifth Avenue

1.30pm – 4.30pm

Monday 15 January 2014

The Gateway Centre, Acomb

10am – 2pm

Every Monday in January 2015

City of York Council, West Offices, Station Rise

10am – 1pm

Monday 23 January 2015

Tang Hall Community Centre, Fifth Avenue

1.30pm – 4.30pm

Supported by York’s Citizens Advice Bureau and Age UK York – the Save Money by Switching Energy campaign launched in December 2013. The scheme enables York residents to register for the assisted scheme through these four easy steps that can result in them being offered potentially cheaper alternative tariffs to consider switching to.

(more…)

Christmas fun…and money advice

City of York Council’s Family Information Service (FIS), Explore York Libraries and Archives Mutual Ltd and the Citizen’s Advice Bureau will be hosting a morning of fun crafts and information on Wednesday 10 December between 9am and 12noon in the reception foyer at West Offices.

There’ll be a host of crafts for little ones (and not so little ones) to get stuck into, including making Christmas decorations, colouring in Frozen characters and decorating paper Christmas trees. Explore York Libraries will also be on hand to provide information about the discounts available through York Cards and representatives from York CAB will be available to help with information on sensible festive spending.

The CAB’s top ten tips to avoid a Christmas Debt Hangover are:
(more…)

Initial York highways resurfacing programme for next year published

The York Council has published it initial programme of resurfacing works for the forthcoming financial year.

Click to enlarge

The carriageway programme can be seen by clicking here The footpath programme can be viewed here

Alternatively click on the graphic right to see a ward by ward analysis.

Not a lot of work is scheduled for the west of the city although the bulk of the programme will not be revealed until the Council has completed its budget for next year in February. The current £2 million programme would normally be supplemented by another £4 million worth of schemes when the dust has settled.

Nevertheless there are some worrying omissions.

In the Westfield ward only a tiny footpath resurfacing scheme in Kempton Close is included.

Most residents expect major highways repairs to be necessary on the Kingsway West/Windsor Garth loop following damaged caused by vehicles accessing the new Our Lady’s redevelopment site. There is no sign of such a commitment

Residents living in the terraced area around Gladstone Street will also be disappointed to have been missed from the initial list. The streets are long overdue for resurfacing. They really need to be sorted out as part of a regeneration scheme for the whole of that part of Acomb.

York Council accounts still not certified

The Councils Auditors have still not certified completion of the York Councils accounts for 2013/14.

The accounts attracted alot of comment when the auditors came to the conclusion “that the Council had proper arrangements in place to secure economy, efficiency and effectiveness in its use of resources, except for weaknesses in budgetary control and financial management in Adult Social Care services”

While taxpayers have been told that action is being taken on that issue, it now emerges that Mazars cannot close the file on last year’s activities because of an outstanding objection from a taxpayer about the Lendal Bridge fine issue.

The concern may be addressed if the Council agrees – as expected – a general refund of fines collected on Lendal Bridge when it meets on 11^th December 2014.

In the meantime a report from Mazars is due to be considered by the Councils audit committee on 10^th December

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