The York Council says that a report on the future of dental health in the City – promised last year – will be published before the end of 2019
The new timetable has been supplied in response to a Freedom of Information request.
There has been continuing concern in the City about lack of vacancies at local dentists for NHS patients. Recently the only recorded vacancies for new patients on the NHS web site were, ironically, at the Bupa practice.
NHS web site listings
Healthwatch York published a report into dental services in the City last year. (Their web site is down at the moment)
The FOI response says, “An Oral Health Strategy has been drafted for children and young people, in response to data obtained from an oral health needs assessment carried out recently. This strategy will be published by the end of 2019“.
However, it goes on to say that the Councils public health department doesn’t monitor the waiting list for services. It says that is a an NHS responsibility.
We have been unable to find any recent figures indicating the overall length of dental waiting lists in the City.
Details of the York Council’s highway weed killing contract
have been published. They can be found on the public contracts register (click)
An extension clause means that the contract, which started
on 1st May 2019, could continue for as long as 3 years. It is held
by Adrian Morrison of Harrogate.
The volume of weeds in gullies, on paths and surrounding
street furniture has produced a high level of complaints this year.
While the weather has a major influence on weed growth, lack
of supervision of the contract is now a major issue in many neighbourhoods.
Independent Councillor Mark Warters has gone as far as calling for the work to be done “in house”. Failing that Parish Councils might be asked to supervise any work.
Mark Warters intends to apply weed killer to a particularly badly infested road in his ward as a way of demonstrating that improvements can be made and quickly.
The hedge which was obstructing the snicket linking Gale Lane and Bachelor Hill has been trimmed back.Unfortunately the potentially hazardous thorn hedge branches on the Tithe Close snicket (they are at eye height) still need to be cut back from the footpath in two locationsIdeal growing conditions mean that hedges and bushes can quickly obstruct footpaths. This one is near the Dickson Park. We hope that all residents will check their boundaries We’ve reported littering of the children’s playground at the Cornlands Park. Mostly beer cans! Unfortunately the spring closing mechanism on the fence gate is not working. This means that dogs can access the area. This may lead to fouling problems. We ask users to make sure that the gate is kept closed./ Continuing problems with litter on some snickets in the Thoresby Road area. There is a growing need for some enforcement action.Some Councillors are now pressing for the Councils weed treatment schedules to be made public. Scenes like the above on The Reeves are not uncommon these days.
That practice stopped last summer although there was no consultation or publicity given to the change of policy.
The new LibDem administration has apparently gone along with this change of approach.
The Council is not required by law to publish responses but it is regarded as good practice. Most Councils do publish this information and it has the advantage of helping to discourage duplicate requests,
Some responses are published when a request has been submitted via the independent web site “What do they Know” However this is not the York Councils preferred channel for submitting and answering information requests.
The Council received 2068 requests under FOI and Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) during the last financial year
News blackout
The Council has also scrapped its “Ward News” web pages.
For many years the authority provided web pages which told local residents what was going on their local neighbourhoods. These were linked to background pages for each ward (click forexample)
The pages typically carried “what’s on” lists and event posters. These have now been binned by the local authority.
The Council is also refusing to publish, on individual Residents Association web pages (example), details of their meetings. Copies of agendas and meeting minutes had been published by the Council for several years but, in a recent decision, these have now been black-listed, ,
This seems to be part of a deliberate strategy aimed at reducing resident influence at West Offices. Half a dozen residents associations have been forced to disband in recent years while the overarching York Residents Federation was also ditched last year.
Liberal Democrat Councillors had previously promisedmore support for residents organisation.
Unfortunately things now seem to be getting worse rather than better.
City centre traders are likely to be looking with concern at the numbers of people who are visiting the City centre. New footfall figureshave been published.
The figures suggest that visitor numbers to the City may have plateaued.
Parliament Street less busy this year?
Long periods of hot weather haven’t, in the past, been good for York with some tourists preferring to visit coastal areas.
This years weather has been mixed.
Special attractions like the Rose Theatre, although generally successful, are not sold out while interest in events like the current “Great Yorkshire Fringe” are at best comparable with last year.
During June several York streets saw a 10% drop in visitor numbers in 2019 compared to the same month in 2018.
Early figures for July in Parliament Street suggest a 4% drop in visitor numbers during July.
Perhaps not surprisingly, given the number of empty shops on Coney Street, that area has seen visitor numbers drop from 812,808 in June 2017 to 713,762 in June of this year.
There is no shortage of excellent “Festivals“ in York while the work of the BID has seen several parts of the city centre tidied up.
The most important time for many City centre traders is the period between now and Christmas.
Lets hope that the City continues to be “best day out” in the region
Gradual decline in visitor numbers to Parliament Street. Smaller shopping streets are doing better with visitor numbers to Stonegate stable and numbers in Micklegate increasing.
The York Council is understood to be testing the use of covert surveillance cameras in a bid to deal with increasing problems with fly tipping, littering and dog fouling.
The latest figures reveal that only 6 people were fined for littering offences in the City during the last financial year.
Even fewer were issued with a ticket for allowing their dogs to foul a public area. Only one was issued last year.
Some snickets in York are littered every day
We understand that a new model of portable CCTV camera is now being piloted. The camera is fully GDPR compliant
Some ward committees have allocated funding in the past with the intention of providing surveillance for streets subject to anti social behaviour. The plans have never come to anything.
Now it seems that some Councillors are prepare to call time on activities which are costly to clean up and, in the case of dog fouling at least, may be a potential public health risk.
The Council have not provided details of where the trials are taking place or what their priorities might be if the scheme is extended to cover the whole City.
Fixed penalty notices issued in York for litteringFixed penalty notices in York for dog fouling
We urge residents to report what appears to be an increasing number of instances of paths being obstructed by hedges in the City
The cycle path on Field Lane in the Hull Road ward is now completely blocked. Hasn’t happened overnight!
The public footpath on Hull Road outside The Elms is now completely obstructed. Potentially dangerous on what is a busy road. Pedestrians are being forced onto the carriageway.
Not a hazard (yet) but gutters in Maple Grove are choked with weeds. Verges an eclectic mix of weeds and wildflowers
The Thanet Road cycle track on the other side of the City has its share of obstructions but the main issue here continues to be litter.
The latest figures issued by the York Council confirm what most residents already knew.
The campaign, to get people to report service issues using a web based system, has stalled. The much hyped “report it” system has broadly the same number of users as it did 7 years ago.
Around 1500 issues are logged electronically each month. This is fewer than contacts via other channels.
Even responses to Emails are very slow these days.
The system was criticised for not being user friendly. It is still markedly more awkward to use than commercial systems like “Fix My Street“. There has been little improvement over the last 2 years with reports (other than street lighting and litter) virtually impossible to track to a conclusion. Street maps where they are included are of a very poor quality.
The new administration has specifically nominated an executive member to get a grip on digital communications.
We wish Cllr Nigel Ayre well with his task.
It is important because the cost of handling information digitally is a fraction of doing so through telephone calls or by a personal visits. Any savings on administration can be ploughed back into improving street level public services in the City.
The Council has started to publish more information on its “open data“ website.
Recently they listed the number and location of fly tips reported to them during July.
In total there have been 72 so far this month.
The worst affected wards are
Osbaldwick/Derwent
Guildhall
Rural West
Many of the reports concern black bags being dumped. There has also been a peak in the fly tipping of building materials.
Perhaps rather surprisingly dumped furniture has been an issue although various charities exist in York which recycle items like these.
It seems that the Councils decision to halve the cost of bulky waste removal has yet to have an impact on the figures. However one ward – Westfield – has announced plans to locate recycling vehicles in estates later in the summer.
