Future of Windsor House site being discussed

Proposal for Centre of Excellence for Disabled Children

Windsor House

A report is being discussed next week which is expected to result in confirmation of plans to close the Windsor House elderly persons home on Ascot Way. The proposal was first discussed in September and now Council officials are reporting back on the discussions that they have had with residents, their relations and staff.

5 residents have recently moved out leaving 17 to find new homes. The Council says that there is currently a good supply of alternative accommodation options available including Glen Lodge.

The care home has 33 staff in total, the majority of who work part time.

The main criticism of the closure relates to timing. Promised modern elderly care facilities on the west of the City will not be available for 2 or 3 years.

Lincoln Court

Hedges blocked view and light from Lincoln Court flats in the summer

Considerable concerns have been expressed by residents of the adjacent Lincoln Court sheltered development.

These self-contained flats which include some communal space, are not included in the closure plans. However, the building has been allowed to deteriorate recently. Window frames are rotten, while an ongoing criticism has been about poor management of parking facilities.  Some boundary hedges weren’t cut in the summer, effectively isolated the elderly residents from the rest of the community.

York must do better in the way that it treats its tenants at Lincoln Court. They need to be given

assurances about the future of their flats as well as a date when modernisation works will commence.

The future of the Windsor Garth site

The Council has unveiled what seems to be a caring and imagination use for the Ascot Way site when the existing buildings have been demolished.

The report describes a possible state of the art facility for disabled children

 

“Should Windsor House close, the site could be redeveloped as the location for the Centre of Excellence for Disabled Children and their Families, for housing or sold.”

Just as society doesn’t always treat the elderly as well as it should, the same could be said of people with disabilities. The principle of the proposed facility would therefore be welcome.

However, there are two significant issues to be addressed before any further development is considered in this neighbourhood.

Traffic congestion and lack of off street parking are now major problems.

They have worsened since 66 additional homes were built on the Hob Stones site and were exacerbated by the Council decision not to let the garages in Newbury Avenue pending the redevelopment of that site. The two issues are linked with inadequate “on street” parking space making access difficult even for the bus service.

There have been calls to introduce a “one way” system or even reopen the second access from Kingsway West.

Whatever the solution may be, one must be found before any development takes place which could further increase vehicle movements in the area.

Gremlins breeding in Council IT department?

It is not only the Council planning portal that is suffering problems.

The much vaunted – but never quite delivering – “do it online” reporting system has broken down again.

As we reported earlier in the year, anyone trying to report issues such as full litter bins will find it difficult to upload a photo of the problem. The Council actually encourages residents to provide an image of the issue being reported (to provide clarity on location and timing).

The Council site currently rejects most images offered. In turn this prevents the issue being uploaded to the Council’s Customer Relationship Management system. It is a repetition of a problem which existed when the system was first launched (and which seemed to have been fixed about a year ago)

Officials at the Council promised a fix several weeks ago but the system is still not working. Litter bin locations are, however, now shown on the site but the image upload problem persists.

Quite why the  Council simply didn’t purchase “off the shelf” the well tried “Fix my Street“ system when they had the chance five years ago remains a mystery.

“On line” reporting is by far the cheapest channel of communication with the Council. It is quicker and avoids unnecessary manual intervention. It should be the preferred method of contact for routine problems. 

The Council pointedly refuses to publish performance statistics on the time taken to deal with issues reported via Email to the Customer Centre (the obvious 24/7 alternative to “on line” reporting) . These are thought to be in excess of 3 days. That is simply not good enough if the alternative “on line” systems are faulty.

Rumours persist that the Councils reporting system, which was developed “in house”, has been subject to an ongoing intellectual property rights wrangle.This continues to hinder its development and roll out.

 

Planning applications – Gremlins on Council planning portal

It looks like last weekends update of the Council “planning portal” has gone badly wrong. The site should list all planning applications received (validated) by the Council during the preceding week.

Since the weekend (when the site was down for “maintenance”) the applications for the weeks commencing 13th and 20th November have disappeared. Some have reappeared on the current weeks list (27th Nov).

Taking the Westfield Ward as an example the site suggests that no applications have been “validated” since 7th November.

The issue is important because residents wishing to object (or support) particular planning applications have only a limited time to record their views. That time is being eroded.

The matter has been raised with senior Councillors and officials at the Council but the Authority has yet to make a statement about what has gone wrong and what is being done to remedy the failure.

 

53% of road drains found to be blocked in York Council survey

£5 million cost to upgrade whole system

Considerable concern was expressed in 2015 when it was discovered that large areas of highway were flooding during wet weather. Many residents complained that the reduced  gulley cleaning service – introduced by the last Labour led Council – was inadequate. The City has over 42,000 gulleys.

In 2016 and 2017 there were major surface water problems in several parts of York.

The led the new Councillor – Andrew Waller – responsible for surface water drainage systems to institute a review of standards.

The initial findings of the comprehensive survey into the effectiveness of drainage systems will now be presented to a meeting next week

The report says,

“To date more than 35,000 of the 43,690 known gullies have been logged, investigated and cleansed as part of the capital funded investigation process, a flood risk assessment process has been previously carried out to ensure key assets have been prioritised.

53% of all assets were found to be blocked but significant work has ensured the majority of the system investigated to date is operating effectively, however more than 900 assets will require wider engineering works to ensure they can operate effectively”.

With many gullies now cleared, the report goes on to say,

“Subsequent heavy rainfall events have given rise to reduced numbers of complaints and reports of localised flood incidences, this is a clear indication of the success of this process, however, significant rainfall such as experienced on the 23rd August this year can still overwhelm a well maintained and operable drainage system as their design capacity would be compromised”.

The findings of an investigation into surface water ponding on Acomb Green is included in the papers (see below)

Now Drainage Board highlights Lowfields playing field development issues

click to view complete letter

According to the “Save Lowfields Playing Field Action Groups“ Facebook page the Ainsty Internal Drainage Board is unhappy with the Council’s plans to develop the playing field.

The Drainage Board comments come a few days after Sport England recorded a formal (holding) objection to the plans. Sport England say that the Council proposed alternative football pitch location (Sim Balk Lane) is unconvincing with any facility there likely to be used mainly by Bishopthorpe.

Lowfields Green – a candidate for the least imaginative architecture award?

Concerns about water run off rates, from what is currently a self draining grassed field, are not unexpected.

A glace at the Council unimaginative serried rows of new houses (see left) as well as offering little streetscape relief, have minimal green space provision.

Sport England objection

Hard surfaces increase water run off rates and neighbouring properties could be adversley affected.

Hopefully the Council will now withdraw its proposals and come with something that not only increases the availability of homes in the area but also addresses some endemic failings.

Not least amongst these are the lack of open space and sports pitches in the Westfield ward.

One of the consequences of poor leisure and other public services is that life expectancy in the area is significantly below the Citywide average

 

Action taken – Sheena steps in to deal with Tedder Road park problems

As we reported last week, the Council has been slow to deal with a hazard presented by an overgrown rose bush on the Tedder Road park. Its thorn branches have been overhanging a footpath at eye height for several weeks.

Cllr. Sheena Jackson has now taken direct action herself over the weekend and cut back the dangerous branches . We hope that the Council will soon trim the rest of the bush.

While in the park, Sheena took the opportunity to sweep up the leaf fall in the well used snicket which links Otterwood Lane and the Tedder Road park. The Council has been asked to clear broken glass from several locations in the area.

Residents are reminded that the current cycle is the last for emptying green bins (garden waste – including leaves) until April.

 

Police commissioner spends over £141,000 on fire service takeover bid

Costs have been revealed concerning the Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) bid to take over responsibilities for overseeing the Fire Service in North Yorkshire.

It has been revealed that Julia Mulligan has spent £141,437.50 on consultants in order to put her business case together, exceeding her budget by over £12,000 in the process.  The revelations come after Councillors on the Police and Crime Panel were issued with a last minute briefing paper from the PCCs office.

Cllr Ashley Mason, Vice Chair of the Panel and Liberal Democrat Councillor for Dringhouses and Woodthorpe, initially queried the costs earlier in the year, but was informed the details were commercially sensitive.

Cllr Ashley Mason said:

“I was astonished to learn how much the PCC had spent on this takeover bid. I was even more surprised to see that these costs are solely for the external consultants and marketers. The costs do not include the large amount of staff time her office put into the campaign and only £88,000 can be claimed back from the Home Office.

This is totally unacceptable and the money would have been better spent in employing more control room staff to address the failings in 101 services, or on local PCSOs, with numbers reducing in York.

The Commissioner has some serious issues to tackle within the police, who have recently fallen in their rating by the Inspectorate of Constabularies’ from ‘Good’ to ‘Requires Improvement.”

 

 

 

Last day for objections to the “Lowfields Green” development

The deadline for objections to the Councils “Lowfields Green” planning application has now passed.

The Action Group opposing the proposal to build on the playing field part of the site have submitted a comprehensive objection. A copy of their objection can be found via their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/LowfieldsActionGroup/

Most of the representations of support for the scheme seem to be generated by the  communal living project (Yorspace) although there is general support for the plans for specialist accommodation for the elderly.

None of the representations in favour of the Councils proposals come for people living near Lowfields (or indeed from the Westfield/Acomb area more generally)

The only unconditional message of support for the Council plan has been lodged by Bob Towner – a former Director of Housing at (you guessed!) the City of York Council!  He says local people should use Hob Moor for recreational activities.

Further examination of the artists impressions of the proposals reveal a regimented design, the likes of which haven’t been seen since the 1960’s.

Lowfields Green – a candidate for the least imaginative architecture award?