Cycle path still blocked/Future of MUGA

Despite promises by Highways Yorkshire, the cycle path on the A64 slip road next to Pike Hills golf course remains obstructed, The overgrowth problem was reported in June. Shortly afterwards Highways Yorkshire (who are responsible for the path up to the junction with the A1036) tweeted to say that the whole path would be routinely freed of obstructions during July.

That has proved not to be the case.

Now the issue is set to be escalated to the local MP but this really shouldn’t be necessary. A team could clear the hazardous overgrowth (thorn branches) in just a couple of hours.

We hope that the issue is not left to volunteers to tackle. If the government is serious about encouraging sustainable transport – the the very least they should do is maintain existing paths in a useable condition.

UPDATE: Highways Yorkshire have tweeted to say that the path “is due to be cleared in the very near future”

We’ve also reported overgrowth near the cemetery and at the Tesco roundabout (York Council responsibility)

A64 cycle path blockages and overgrowth at Tesco roundabout.

MUGA Mugged

Separately we have queried with Councillors representing the Westfield ward what the future of the former Multi User Games Area (MUGA) site off Kingsway West is. It was used as a building compound for a couple of years but was subsequently abandoned.

The expectation was the the area would be leveled and grassed over. At present it is a weed infested eyesore.

The Council mowers studiously avoid cutting the area. They stick religiously to a route outside the line of the MUGA fence (which was removed last year).

If the area isn’t to be maintained as grassland then there is scope for more tree and wildflower planting. Neglect shouldn’t be an option.

Sadly there is still no news of the promised replacement games area. An all-weather surface, to replace what was lost, was due to be provided at the Thanet Road Sports Area, but progress has been glacial.

Former MUGA site off Kingsway West

What’s on in York: Operation Hummingbird

 

Operation Hummingbird

Does our grief age as we do?

 
Operation Hummingbird is a conversation across the decades about a sudden family death, realising an opportunity that we all wish we could do at some point in our life; go back and talk to our younger self.  Taking the key themes from his own memoir, The Day the Alien Came, Matt Harper-Hardcastle’s new play explores terminal illness, anticipatory grief and the complicated journey of living with loss.
 
This was originally created for York’s Dead Good Festival 2020, but due to the COVID pandemic was streamed as a rehearsed reading instead.
 
Now the full production is coming to you this summer – in 4 York Explore venues around the city!


Thursday 5 August 3.30pm New Earswick Folk Hall
Thursday 5 August 7pm Dringhouses Library
Thursday 12 August 2pm York Explore
Thursday 12 August 6pm Hungate Reading Café with food offer
Thursday 12 August 7pm Hungate Reading Café performance only

All performances are £3 unless you are taking advantage of our early bird food offer at Hungate Reading Café where the cost is £10 for a calzone and salad, a drink (beer, wine or a soft drink) and the performance.

For more information and to book tickets click here
 

 

Waste collection and other problems mount for York residents

Anyone reading the agenda for todays City of York Council meeting may mistake it for a meeting of a University debating society. Verbose, borderline pompous, motions and amendments dominate the agenda.

As the first face to face meeting of the authority since coronavirus struck, there has been plenty of time to fashion an agenda which talks to the people of the City.

Instead we have are offered the spectacle of Council members essentially having a chat with each other.

The City’s day to day problems may as well be taking place on another planet.

https://www.york.gov.uk/WasteCollectionUpdates

The meeting is, for the first time, being held at the racecourse. Perhaps bookmakers will be on hand to offer odds on anything useful emerging as the race reaches the final furlong at 10:00pm?

Earlier in the week, the Councillor responsible for waste collection held a special meeting to discuss the pressing issue of the release of “Chinese lanterns” in the City. The opportunity to also discuss the backlog in refuse collection was missed.

Yet hundreds of unemptied green bins currently adorn our streets.

Earlier a controversial change in the playground refurbishment programme was agreed at a “behind closed doors” meeting. Emergency “delegation” powers – which allow officers to make decisions without consultation or democratic input – were exploited.

The opposition claim (with some justification) to be outraged by the decision. Have they found a way of holding those responsible to account? Apparently not, judging by tonight’s agenda.

With (rightly or wrongly) COVID restrictions being lifted from Monday, the Councils top priority should now be to end the emergency powers and introduce effective governance arrangements.

In the real world, taxpayers expect basic public standards to be maintained.

It is not just the York Council that is out of touch.

Sad to report that, as of yesterday, the promised work to remove overgrowth obstructions from the A64/Tadcaster Road cycle path had not been completed by Highways/Yorks or the Council.

Obstructions on Tadcaster Road cycle path

The lack of action contrasts with the panic decisions taken last spring when roads and car parks were closed in order to allow “social distancing” on paths which were already much wider than those which are currently obstructed.

Football pitch provision hitch could hit Lowfields development

Delays in commisioning new football pitches near Sim Balk Lane could delay the occupation of houses at Lowfields. The pitches, part of a Bishopthorpe FC expansion project, were part funded by developer contributions from Lowfields.

The Council at the time argued that the pitches would replace those lost at Lowfields.

One of the conditions attached to the granting of the Lowfields development was that the homes there would not be occupied until the new pitches had been brought into use.

It has now emerged that completion of the Sim Balk Lane scheme is delayed.

Essential work to the adjacent cycle track, – which provides a link to a parking area – has not been started.

The work proposed includes widening and resurfacing of the path down to the underpass, resurfacing of damaged areas, installation of bulkhead lighting to the underside of the underpass and the repainting of the underpass walls. There will apparently also be a a proposal for a “community mural” provided by Sustrans.

The work will require approval by the Council and is unlikely to be completed until late in the year.

The developers say that they have already installed new bins as part of the project which has helped reduce the littering issue in that area.

The planning permission for Lowfields included the following condition.

34 No dwelling within the red line area highlighted on the attached plan (insert plan reference ) shall be occupied until three replacement football pitches of the same size as those on land subject to this planning application, have been created. The three pitches shall be on land ‘To The South East Of 235 Tadcaster Road’, subject planning permission Ref. No. 18/00251/FUL. The completed works shall include all levelling, drainage, ground preparation and grass seeding works
Reason:- To ensure that appropriate replacement playing pitch facilities are provided for those lost in association with the development and to secure compliance with paragraphs 73 and 74 of the NPPF.

Application ref 17/02429/OUTM

Separately the Council claimed earlier in the week that all available properties at Lowfields had been reserved by prospective purchasers.

What’s on in York: “Finding the words”

Thursday 24th June 2021

7:00pm

On line event organised by York Explore Library

Free event. Click to register

Come and listen to some of the best poets from Yorkshire and beyond at Finding the Words, our relaxed and welcoming poetry evening

Finding the Words with Kathryn Bevis, Ellora Sutton and Shash Trevett

Kathryn Bevis is Hampshire Poet 2020-21 and founder of The Writing School Online . Her poems have won several awards, including first prize in the Poets & Players and Against the Grain competitions. Kathryn’s work has been published and anthologised in print and online by: Nine Arches Press, iamb, Live Canon, Words for The Wild, Parthian Books, and The Fenland Poetry Journal. She now designs and delivers online Poetry for Wellbeing courses for adults in substance misuse and mental health settings, and in prisons. Kathryn is working towards her first collection.

Ellora Sutton (she/her) is a queer poet from Hampshire. She has won the Mslexia Poetry Competition, the Poetry Society and Artlyst’s Art to Poetry Award, and the Pre-Raphaelite Society Poetry Competition. Her work has been published by Poetry News, Ink Sweat & Tears, and Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal, amongst others. Her debut chapbook, All the Shades of Grief, was published in 2020 by Nightingale & Sparrow, and for the first three months of 2021 she enjoyed being poet in residence at Jane Austen’s House. She tweets @ellora_sutton, or you can find her at ellorasutton.com.

Shash Trevett is a Tamil from Sri Lanka who came to the UK to escape the civil war. She is a poet and a translator of Tamil poetry into English. She has collaborated with artists and composers and is a winner of a Northern Writers’ Award. Her pamphlet From a Borrowed Land will be published in May 2021 by Smith|Doorstop. She is currently co-editing (with Vidyan Ravinthiran and Seni Seneviratne) an anthology of Tamil, English and Sinhala poetry from Sri Lanka and its diaspora communities. Shash was the 2019 Apprentice Poet in Residence at Ilkley Literature Festival and is a 2021 Visible Communities Translator in Residence at the National Centre for Writing. She is a 2021 Ledbury Critic and a Board Member of Modern Poetry in Translation.

Acomb Explore Under 5’s Storytime

Image result for children's stories images

Thursday 17th June 2021

10:30am

Acomb Explore Library, Front Street

Stories and songs at Acomb Explore

Join us for stories, songs and rhymes at this socially distanced event. This is suitable for under 5’s with and accompanying adult. Each ticket is for 1 adult with children age under 5 years old.

Register for this free event (click)

What’s on in York: Virtualising the Archive

Tuesday, 15th June 2021

19:30 – 20:30

On Line (click to register)

Virtualising the Archive
Dusty, dry, secretive, academic, mysterious, impenetrable – mainstream media often portrays archives (and archivists!) in these terms. This is despite the continuing efforts of the profession to ensure collections are open and accessible to all.

Explore York Libraries and Archives have partnered with Bright White Ltd, an innovator in digital storytelling, to slay the ˜dusty archives” dragon once and for all. Together, they are developing the prototype for the Explore Archives Storytelling Tool (EAST), which will allow the archives to be explored in new interactive ways.

Bright White’s creative developers Chris Walker and Andy Nye, along with Explore’s Civic Archivist Julie-Ann Vickers, will talk about the idea behind the new tool and their journey in developing the prototype.

As part of the event, you’ll also have the opportunity to participate in a demonstration of this next-generation archives experience for the first time in its development.

About the speakers:

Chris Walker is a Founding Director of the multi-award-winning design consultancy Bright White Ltd. Working predominantly in the museums and heritage sector, the company creates and implements innovative uses of technology in museum interpretation.

Andy Nye has spent 20 years in digital and has a proven track-record of concept creation, design and implementation. Since 2013 immersive technology has been a key part of his work. He has appeared on panels at shows such as the Wearable Technology Show and H+K’s influencer event, spoken at TEDx York and regularly hosts workshops on new technology.

Dr Julie-Ann Vickers is an archivist at Explore York Libraries and Archives. She has worked in local authority archives throughout Yorkshire as well as archives in Oxford, Suffolk and Leicester. She has a background in medieval history but her recent work has focussed on the 19th and 20th century records of York