Spending 40p – York Council flushed with optimism

The York Council is handing over the running of its public conveniences to a private contractor.

Toilet sign

A standard charge of 40p will be made to users. The contractor will be able to increase the charge by 10p per annum.

The news is not particularly surprising although the scale of the charge is.

Visitors already tortured by traffic restriction fines now face another form of discomfort. The vendetta follows on from the high profile persecution of those “caught short”.

The Council has now published a list of 9 further offenders all of who faced fines of over £100. One urinated outside the Magistrate Court building conveniently saving on transport costs.

The Council hopes to save £75,000 a year from the charge. In return it promises a £663,000 refurbishment programme including £33,000 to be spent on the Front Street Acomb toilets.

All toilets will have unisex cubicles and have baby change facilities. Accessibility will be greatly improved with all facilities having alarm cords for disabled users connected to a 24-hour helpline and there will be 24-hour access to all toilets. This will be controlled by gates operated by payment of a 40p fee – what is already being charged at Silver Street – while disabled users are can continue to use RADAR keys for no charge.

Nine public conveniences will be provide under the new arrangements. The nine are located at:

  •  Acomb, Front Street
  •  Haxby, Main Street
  •  Coppergate
  •  Exhibition Square
  •  Nunnery Lane CP
  •  Silver Street
  •  St George’s Field CP
  •  Tanner Row
  •  Union Terrace

Other public conveniences will close

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York marathon faces sprint rival

run to loo

A new York Sprint race is to be held next summer for the first time. The event will aim to find the fastest visitor to the City.

Entrants will be asked to drink 3 pints of lager and will then be given a map of the Councils new network of public conveniences. Contestants will then race to the nearest site.

In line with the publicity for the Lendal bridge closure, recommended routes to the loos will be marked out making full use of the northern by pass.

On arrival 50% of the conveniences will be closed for cleaning.

CCTV cameras will be strapped to the back of each contestant to ensure that they do not cheat.

The entry fee for the contest will be 40p Multiple entries are allowed but will be charged separately.

Entry forms will be available on the Council web site shortly.

NB. The event has no connection with the “brass monkeys” race although the consequences could be similar.


Council bids to prevent repetition of Christmas bin collection chaos

The York Council is distributing a leaflet to each household explaining how they plan to schedule waste collections over the Christmas period.

Bins in Foxwood 2012

Bins in Foxwood 2012

Last year the service deteriorated into chaos during the same period.

This year some recycling collections are being cancelled. There will be no collections on New Years Day but there will be a “catch up” on the following Saturday.

The Council have issued the following advice.

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A bridge too near?

The promised report on Labour plans for a new £10 million bridge near Wilton Rise has now been published.

It turns out that £1.5 million of this will be spent on consultant’s fees.

Housing numbers. click to enlarge

Housing numbers. click to enlarge

The report claims that the costs of the bridge would be repaid “from the additional income in Business Rates and Council Tax generated by the new developments” (on the York central site).

It then goes on to claim that 1083 new homes will be provided. That is a surprise because the draft Local Plan published by Labour in April assumed only 438 homes would be constructed on this site.

However, the housing numbers included in the Labour draft Local Plan have already been undermined with actual planning applications submitted, and approved, over the last 6 months being in every case higher than the Plan estimate
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Therefore a much higher housing figure is a legitimate target for the York central site.

The present coalition government policy does encourage development and allows local authorities to retain and invest, for 6 years, additional Council Tax monies generated by new homes (New Homes Bonus).

Business Rates have also been “localised”. So an increase in income from additional commercial buildings would increase the amount that the Council receives from Business Rates. However government grants, which seek to equalise Council income between “prosperous” and less well off areas, could be reduced.

No business case of any sort has been provided for the meeting next week.

In addition to the homes, the “plan” talks about “building 93,000 sq m of office space with ancillary bar, restaurant, retail and leisure uses” in 2015.

A further 35,000 sq m would be built in 2019 in the form on a commercial area “in front of the station” and would include a new hotel although most would be more offices.

Of course, any incremental development in the City provides similar increases in Council income plus more jobs and homes.

Residents might have expected any income to be earmarked to pay for repairs to the public services in the City which have deteriorated so badly over the last 3 years.

Public consultation results - York central access options

Public consultation results – York central access options

Incredibly, the Council is being asked to earmark the £10 million without a development “Masterplan” being in place.

As a result no planning permission exists for the development.

The absence of a business plan is the major problem at present. It remains unclear how the site clean up will be funded (it is heavily polluted) nor is there any guarantee that other transport infrastructure needs can be financed.

From the information, that has been made available, it does seem that the Councils investment will not be underwritten in any way.

It is therefore a very high risk venture.

There is no proposal to form a joint development company which would allow Council Taxpayers to share in the success of any development (to offset the substantial risk)

The legal restrictions – which apply across Europe – on subsidising private companies are not explored in the paper.

Like the sale of the Haymarket car park on Hungate – for around 50% of its current open market value – the Council is being both naïve and reckless with taxpayers money. The promised offices and hotel on Hungate have yet to move forward and so have provided no economic stimulus for the City.

The “Bridge to Nowhere” could well be a similar embarrassment.

With the national economy improving, and some local developers reflecting the more buoyant approach in the City, less risky ways to kick start important developments like York Central should be considered.

Preparing For Cold Weather

City of York Council says that it is is supporting Public Health England’s Cold Weather Plan which looks at ways of reducing unnecessary deaths and illness this winter.

click to access

click to access

That’s a bit rich coming from a Council that has just decided to scrap 2/3 of the city’s self help salt bins and take around 30 miles of road off the gritting schedules!

Alternative view

They say that there are between 2000 and 2500 excess winter deaths each year in Yorkshire and Humber, many of which are preventable.

The Cold Weather Plan aims to prevent avoidable harm to people’s health by highlighting the negative health effects cold weather can have whilst enabling people to prepare and respond appropriately.

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York electric vehicle charging point network revealed

Tourists, businesses and residents in York can now benefit from the region’s first network of pay-as-you-go electric vehicle charging points.

Electric vehicle chargingIn addition to the 12 charging points already located across York, a network consisting of six fast charging points has now been installed at five locations across city centre car parks (Union Terrace and Nunnery Lane) and Park & Ride sites (Monks Cross, Grimston Bar and Designer Outlet) to allow drivers to re-charge their cars on a pay-as-you-go basis.

The network is publicly accessible with a simple payment system so that users can pay by phone or text in a similar way drivers currently pay for parking in council owned car parks.

Each charging point allows two electric vehicles to top up their batteries at the same time with up to 22kW power output from a choice of type two or three pin charging sockets.
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York is first city in the UK to get electric bus makeover

Sight seeing bus on Lendal Bridge

One of York’s renowned City Sight Seeing buses will become the first double-decker bus in the country to get an electric makeover, thanks to a grant made by the Coalition government.

Reliance buses will also benefit from the same pot of funding, with the installation of new exhausts that will help reduce poor emissions in the city.

Details of the supplementary allocation were released 3 weeks ago.

A City Sight Seeing bus, operated by Transdev, will become the first double decker in the UK to be converted from diesel to pure electric with lithium ion batteries, similar to those used by mobile phones.

Converting from diesel to electric will have substantial benefits for air quality as the bus is used intensively in the city centre. The cost of the conversion will be £75k, but will save an estimated £15k a year in fuel costs.

The remaining DfT funding will be used to retrofit two diesel buses operated by Reliance, along the A19 route,with Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) exhaust technology which reduces emissions of small particles.

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E petition started as Council stops green bin collection

This is the last day that the Council will be emptying green bins this winter.

Green bin 2

One resident has started an “on line” petition aimed at getting the service restored. Click here to access it

The petition reads

We the undersigned petition the council to collect and empty our Green Bins throughout the Year.

Autumn leaves are falling everywhere and gardens are still growing but we have nowhere to put our Green Waste unless we store it until spring or take it at our own expense to Hazel Court.
We have all paid for this service to the council who have short changed us by cutting winter collections

Acomb is coming alive in run up to Christmas

Acomb Front Street is getting into the Christmas spirit with twenty five Christmas tree brackets for small trees above shop fronts being put into place as part of a wider package of investment by City of York Council.

£30,000 is being invested to support businesses in Acomb and to help act as a catalyst for community-led economic development in the area.

Acomb Alive

The move was stimulated by the formation of the “Acomb Alive” group last year.

The York Council had been heavily criticised by traders and local residents when it abandoned its Acomb Office base in 2012 and subsequently slashed the funds available for Ward Committees to invest in the area.

The investment will see £24,000 investment on Front Street to install electricity points, repair and replace flower tubs, remove damaged and unneeded street furniture as well as new signage and seating.

The remaining £6,000 has been granted to kick-start an events programme to encourage footfall to the shopping area and to hep bring a flavour of the city centre to the important local shopping area.

£4 million landfill tax hits York as recycling performance crashes

Council performance stats click to access full report

Council performance stats click to access full report

A Council report has revealed that the amount of waste going to landfill in the City is significantly increasing.

As a result York taxpayers face a £3,918,960 bill – up over 17% on budget forecasts.

The fall in performance comes only weeks after a change in collection arrangements brought chaos to some streets in York.

The position is likely to deteriorate further over the winter as the Council is stopping collecting green waste altogether. The winter months accounted for around 18% of this type of waste last year.

The fear is that most of this will now go to landfill.

Historic recycling rates in York. Click to enlarge

Historic recycling rates in York. Click to enlarge

During the period when the Liberal Democrats led the council the amount of recycling and green waste sent for composting had substantially increased each year.

Now, against a background of delays on the longer term Allerton Park waste treatment project, prospects look increasingly bleak for both taxpayers and environmentalists in the City.