On the third day of trading shopping centres around the City were reporting only steady shopper numbers.
There were spaces available in all car parks.
The unspectacular start may result in calls for the Council, and its agent Make it York, to step up publicity, street entertainment and special deals on car parking.
Meanwhile support for the campaign to have the Museums Gardens reopened is gaining momentum.
Paul Fawkesley, Founder of Treasure Hunt York, has emailed his support for the reopening
It looks like the traditional figure signposts on the City centre will start to disappear shortly.
The project to replace them with a “modern” equivalent could cost taxpayers £350,000 with a similar matching contribution coming from the York Bid.
Controversial in many ways, the timing of the expenditure looks even more suspect against the background of a City centre now desperately trying to attract local shoppers.
The future off the redundant finger signposts has been highlighted by a campaigning Councillor. He wants to repurpose the posts for use in sub-urban York and in the surrounding villages.
This seems like a sound idea.
A new cast iron post can cost as much as £4,300 and repurposing existing signs would not only be cheaper but would also meet the Council’s environmental objectives.
Arguably the finger signs are also less visually intrusive designed as they were to complement Conservation Areas.
So what will happen to the recovered posts?
No one seems to know.
There are many locations – not least the routes of the public rights of way made even more popular for exercise during lock-down – which would benefit from better way marking.
Consigning the iron posts to the scrap heap would add insensitivity to the poor judgement of the original decision.
According to figures published by the City of York Council, it investigated over 188 cases of potential fraud against the authority during the last financial year.
The vast majority of these involved bogus attempts to claim Council Tax reductions. 13 involved attempted social housing frauds.
Of the 188 cases investigated, fraud was confirmed in 109 cases.
The potential loss of income to the authority was £255,185 pa.
The Council employs 13 anti fraud staff at a cost of around £270,000 pa.
As attention focuses on the major backlog in waste collection that is developing in York, another “behind closed doors” decision has been taken to order 12 new refuse collections vehicles.
Two of the 12 will be electric vehicles. These vehicles cost approximately 2.5 times more than their conventional counterparts but are cheaper to run. They have range limitations.
There is only 1 supplier of these types of vehicle in the country and they say that January 2021 is the earliest that delivery can be expected.
The 12 vehicles will cost £3 million in total.
A further order is expected to be approved later in the summer bringing the total investment to over £6.6 million
Much of the Councils waste management fleet is well beyond its normal lifespan. This has resulted in unreliability with missed collections a feature of the last 18 months of operation. The COVID crisis has simply magnified the problems.
The Council has never satisfactorily explained why it did not continue its annual vehicle replacement programme to ensure that overall reliability levels remained acceptable.
It appears that indecision – prompted perhaps by a hope that more electric options would become available – led to unacceptable delays in placing orders.
The Councils internal scrutiny and audit processes should have revealed the risks associated with such inaction.
Sadly that process didn’t seem to work.
Quite what quality of service residents can look forward to over the remainder of this year remains unclear.
However the Council won’t meet to debate the plan until the end of June by which time many workers will have returned to their jobs.
As the government relaxes the restrictions for retailers from 15 June, the council is developing a strategy to build visitor, resident and stakeholder confidence that York is a safe, healthy and attractive place for everyone.
This new strategy forms part of the council’s Recovery and Renewal Strategy. The Economic Recovery – Transport and Place Strategy is in five interdependent strands that will be delivered over the next few months.
The strategy will focus on:
The Big Idea? Park and cycle has been tried before with limited success. This is partly because of security/parking issues, partly because many people do not own or can’t ride an appropriate type of bike, or they may have physical capacity limitations and/or have concerns about cycling in poor weather.
The council says it “will deliver these measures at pace to best accelerate the recovery of the economy, allowing doors to open safely in June whilst protecting residents’ safety”.
The media release pointedly fails to recognise the barriers to walking and cycling in sub-urban and village areas where unsafe highway surfaces and obstructions are major concerns.
The Council says that residents will be able to give feedback about the plan once measures are in place by participating in the city-wide consultation “Our Big Conversation” helping to set a long-term vision for the city. This will be launched in the next couple of weeks
“Many of the transport and place measures will run for the duration of the one year period and potentially beyond. Although all measures will need to be flexible and remain under review based on government guidance, public health advice, local resident and business feedback, and ongoing assessments of the outcomes of the interventions”
The York Council leadership has written to the government asking for restrictions on borrowing to be eased.
The request comes in the wake of claims that the City faces a £24 million black hole in its finances. The Council was urged last week to provide more details of the deficit but has so far failed to do so.
The only information available to the public was published prior to the last executive committee meeting at the beginning of May. This showed that much of the deficit as made up of Council Tax and Rates income defaults although £10.9million was the assumed cost of extra social care.
No savings for reduced travel, energy and materials costs were included.
Now Council Leader Keith Aspden has written to Local Government Minister Robert Jenrick making a case for government support.
Perhaps surprisingly the letter concentrates on the Councils borrowing powers. The present Council leadership committed to a £560 million investment programme only a few weeks ago and is now agonising about how much it can actually deliver in the new financial climate.
It has separately said that it will press on with the York Central development although many will feel that some of the basic assumptions about office and retail growth are now redundant. It seems the best – most fanciful – hope is that the government will agree to move the House of Lords to the site.
The Council leadership also says that it wants a 2 year moratorium on making a “minimum revenue provision” in its budget. This is the funding set aside to repay interest and principal repayments on borrowing. The implication of not paying off this debt (most is borrowed over a 20 year period) could be to push a bow wave of debt onto future generations.
This tactical approach is also exposed by another request in the letter.
The Council wants to borrow to cover revenue expenditure – a bit like taking out a bank loan to buy a jar of jam.
The Council goes on to ask for the suspension of S114 “so that struggling Councils don’t have to deliver a balanced budget in the medium term”.
Section 114 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988 requires the Chief Finance Officer, in consultation with the council’s monitoring officer, to report to all the authority’s members if there is, or is likely to be, an unbalanced budget. In practice, this is most likely to be required in a situation in which reserves have become depleted and it is forecast that the council will not have the resources to meet its expenditure in a particular financial year. A full council meeting must then take place within 21 days to consider the notice. In the meantime, no new agreements involving spending can be entered into.
Many will feel that issues like these do require full and public debate. That will involve ensuring that all Councillors and taxpayers are alerted to [problems at the earliest opportunity.
The Council could make a start by providing a candid and full disclosure of its financial position.
It should then go on to review its financial strategy and options in a way that promotes understanding by local residents.
Still waiting for York Council to explain how recent land and building acquisitions, funded by borrowing, in the commercial sector will hit its bottom line against a background of falling rents.
To read the full article click here
NB. The Councils Facebook Q & A session earlier in the week failed to reveal anymore information about how the Councils supposed £24 million budget “back hole” has been calculated.
The Council has allocated virtually the whole of its pedestrian/cycling budget to schemes in central York. £500,000 had been earmarked for delegation for ward committees to spend addressing local issues.
In a decision list (below) published today, the work programme concentrates on cycling schemes claiming that no improvements for walkers were identified (other than possible long term improvements to pedestrian crossings).
There is no funding allocated for schemes in the Westfield, Dringhouses, Holgate, Acomb or Rural West wards.
Even pleas for cycle margin work on roads like Bradley Lane, Foxwood Lane and School Street have been ignored, as has a request for resurfacing work on the Knapton – Rufforth off road cycle track. The latter has been heavily used during the lockdown period with sections now breaking up .
Works to improve access for walkers don’t even rate a mention in the decision notice.
No action to tackle public footpath ponding
Among the schemes local Councillors were asked to back were actions to tackle difficulties on footpaths linking Westfield Place and Grange Lane as well as within the Council maintained section of Acomb Wood. All that was required at these locations were short sections of chippings to avoid flooded areas. A relatively inexpensive initiative.
Despite the budget apparently having been delegated for local determination, it seems to have been carved up by an official in discussions with the (Executive) Councillor for Fishergate; a ward which gets the bulk of the funding along with the Guildhall and Micklegate areas. There is no sign in the report of any influence on priorities by ward Councillors or residents.
It is unclear how much each scheme will cost, but it is unlikely that the funding will stretch far down the list.
Cycle margin leveling would encourage more cycling
The money could probably most usefully have been allocated to cycle margin repair work. This type of resurfacing programme sees the inner 2 metres of the most uneven carriageways levelled to allow safe passage for two wheeled machines. There was a margins repair programme in place until about 2011 when it was scrapped.
A further £500,000 was allocated for highway repair works which should also have been determined by local Councillors at neighbourhood level.
The Council has not said where this money will be spent although the recent lockdown has served to highlight just how poor some road surfaces are. A list of priorities in Westfield was given to Ward Councillors some 6 months ago but so far there has been no response.
The latest controversy, following on from the Bishopthorpe Road carriageway closure, may serve to confirm the views of those taxpayers who feel that sections of the Council are now out of control and are pursuing their own blinkered, parochial agenda.
The Council Leader may need to make some changes to Executive portfolios if he is to avoid large sections of the York community becoming increasingly alienated from his administration.
The Council has today issued a media release claiming that the £20 million Guildhall project, “has managed to progress whilst implementing government social distancing restrictions and the team has achieved 90% of all scheduled work on site in the last month”.
That is good news. Earlier in the year long delays had been forecast
The Councils performance in allowing the listed building to slip in a shocking state of disrepair was disappointing. The conservation work needed to be completed and the letting of a repairs contract, after so many delays, was broadly welcomed.
Unfortunately the Council also agreed to embark on, what some viewed as, a financially reckless bid to provide more offices and a “business club” on the site, with part of the work being paid from rent generated by a large restaurant. Last year the Council let a £16,000 contract aimed at attracting a restaurant operator
The mix of uses always looked risky. The private sector declined to take on any of that risk. The business case looks even less convincing in the light of the recession that will grip this country over the next few years.
Taxpayers already face paying a £574,000 a year subsidy – mostly for interest charges – on the project. Office rent income of £549,000 a year is assumed. If any of the latter doesn’t materialise, then the operating deficit will have to be paid for by cuts in other pubic services in the City.
In seeking to let the office and start up space, the Council will in effect be in competition with itself as there is spare accommodation at the Community Stadium, at the eco small business centre and, potentially, on Piccadilly.
Even the Councils own offices may soon have spare space as more staff find it possible (and desirable) to work from home – one of the possible positive benefits of the current health crisis. (To see other empty property click)
Against that background, residents would have expected the Council to undertake a “root and branch” reappraisal of all aspects of the project.
Instead they seem to be adopting an “it’ll be alright on the night” approach.
In this case, as with several other projects, it most certainly won’t be alright, unless the Council comes up with and implements a convincing economic recovery plan.
NB. Separately it appears that the new £700,000 City centre “direction signs” project is set to go ahead. 50% is being funded by the York BID.
Leaving aside the controversial appearance of the signs, this is surely expenditure that could have been delayed at least until an economic recovery is well underway and tourists are returning to the city in larger numbers.
The Council has published a review of its response to the Coronavirus crisis. It will be discussed at a “virtual” Executive meeting next week.
The review mostly looks backwards and therefore contains little that is new.
The report does, however, say, “Further work is needed to accurately assess the impact, then to identify and plan the city’s response. It should be noted that, based on the financial information in this report, and the expected increase in demand for services as we start to move out of lockdown, this work will involve reprioritising council budgets, focussing resource on where there are greatest challenges and providing a new strategic plan for the council to work to over the coming months. It is quite possible that there will be some previous priorities that can’t be delivered in the same way in the light of our new operating context.
A Recovery Plan is being developed (aligning with regional recovery activity through the LRF) which will outline the risks and challenges of the emerging situation, with actions in response and opportunities based on lessons learned during the emergency response. Clearly, this plan will take into consideration and align with Government advice and national plans for recovery. It will be used to inform a review of the existing Council Plan in order to produce an Operational Recovery Plan to guide the council over the next 6 – 9 months”.
That is the right approach.
There needs to be an immediate moratorium on taking on new expenditure. An “approvals committee” should be set up which can publicly test any new expenditure proposals.
The Councils initial assessment of its financial position may produce accusations that it is very much a “worst case” scenario. The government has today confirmed that in total it will grant £10.5 million to help the Council offset its estimated £35 million exposure. Much of the defict assumes a high level of non payment of Council Tax and business rent.
There is a stark warning of cash flow problems later in the year “the Council would have to concentrate on providing statutory services only”. That would be bad news for services like leisure, with some facilities likely to close.
On its capital programme the Council promises a project by project review. “this will include considering the overall purpose of the scheme and whether they are still financially viable given the risk to the overall economy. This is particularly crucial for those schemes that assumed the generation of capital receipts to fund expenditure”.
The report is silent on the consequences of some schemes that area now past the point of no return.
Recent increases in the Council’s commercial portfolio are not analysed but there are fears of a forced “fire sale”.
Empty offices at the community stadium site (underwritten by the Council) could remain empty for years, while the pipeline sales of empty former social care buildings could also fall through. Options for cutting back on the £20 million Guildhall refurbishment project will need to be considered.
The Community Stadium itself, although outsourced, is dependent on other activities on the site to cover its running costs.
It seems certain that there will be delays on the York Central regeneration project while the £14 million new multi storey car park on St Georges Field will no doubt be shelved together with the rest of the Castle Gateway project.
Other cherished capital investment projects, which involved increased debt, and therefore increase the day to day running costs of the Council, will have to go “on hold”.
No new contracts should be let unless they direct address the adverse consequences of the health crisis.
Much more on this and the implications for other public services in the City will become apparent over the next few weeks.
