Business Improvement District for York city centre – taxpayers asked for £50,000 loan

…..but still no sign of help for sub-urban commercial centres like Front Street

Front Street snubbed again by York Council

The York Council’s Executive will be asked to support the successful implementation of the Business Improvement District (BID) in York at a meeting on Thursday 28 January.

The meeting comes after a ballot in November 2015 saw businesses across the city centre vote in favour of a new Business Improvement District, which will deliver over £800,000 in new investment for the city centre each year.

Executive will be asked to note a draft memorandum of understanding and baseline operating agreement for the Business Improvement District ahead of final terms being reached.

The Executive will also be asked to approve a cash flow loan of up to £50,000 to help support the creation of the Business Improvement District. It’s proposed this loan will be reimbursed in full by Summer 2016.

The business-led BID will take decisions on how to invest in the city centre and will focus on areas such as improving the cleanliness of the city centre, tackling anti-social behaviour and supporting businesses.

However the Council continues to ignore calls for regeneration initiatives in sub-urban retail areas like Front Street. Its Quango partner organisation “Make it York” is also entirely focused on the City centre area.

The Council report also outlines City of York Council’s annual contribution, via levy, of around £28,000 beginning in the 2016/17 financial year. The BID will however reimburse the administrative cost of levy collection up to £25,000.
(more…)

Cleaner York report published

York Council looks like it will soon get to grips with improving cleanliness standards in the City.

Manual sweeping in the Acomb ward click to enlarge

A report, to be considered on 25^th January, makes several recommendations, although the most significant may be that the management of street cleaning will be devolved to local Ward Committees.

The report does, however, say that the funds available for cleaning will be reduced.

The report says, “Cleansing will take place with a minimum frequency of quarterly and a maximum of daily, depending on the location. Although in some locations there will be a reduction in the frequency of visits by a large mechanical road sweeper the new schedules will allow the vehicle to be driven more slowly which will ensure improved removal of detritus. This will not only improve cleanliness standards but also remove the matter in which weeds are able to grow”.

Mechanical sweeping in the Acomb Ward click to view

The report notably fails to say what standards will apply to sub-urban shopping areas, public spaces and communal areas on estates. These are often the places which have the biggest litter problems

Litter and Poop scoop bins

The report makes a welcome proposal to increase the number of litter bins. The number of litter reports started to increase when the last Council removed several bins. (They responded by stopping the publication of statistics showing the number of complaints being received – see below).

Combined litter and poop scoop bins

The Council will also move over to combined litter/poop scoop bins. These are emptied by the same operative and end up in landfill.

Enforcement

Despite fly tipping costing the Council £69,000 to remove in 2014, only £2248 was recovered from fines. During the same year, 8 fixed penalty notices were issued for litter dropping and dog fouling.

Reporting problems

The Council is promising that its much delayed on line issue reporting system will finally become available in the summer.

It means that the current – dysfunctional – “report it “system and the outdated “Smarter York” app will be scrapped. The latter, introduced in a hurry in 2011 by a new Council administration, lacked the convenience and flexibility of commercial systems such as “Fix my Street”. The Smarter York app is currently costing the Council over £12,000 a year to maintain with use having dwindled to less than 4 a week.

We will see; but the Councils promise to soft launch the system, before promoting its use, is a welcome step forward.

The Council is also promising to launch a “One Planet” App which will allow residents to advertise surplus items for “exchange”. We assume that they mean what effectively would be a version of Freecycle. The system would also “receive alerts regarding which type of waste to present on which week and a scanning facility to indicate if an item is recyclable based on York’s collection policy”.

Performance indicators

Attached to the report is a welcome glimpse of the performance indicators “lost to view” a few years ago.

They aren’t complete but their publication is a welcome step forward by the current coalition administration (see below)

: Performance indicators

Communications probe in wake of York floods failures

How events unfolded on “twitter” click to enlarge

A media release issued by the York Council on the afternoon of 26^th December assured residents that “provisions were in place to protect the City” from flooding.

Less than 14 hours later the Foss barrier had failed, 700 homes and businesses had been flooded and telecoms were down.

The Council issued a further media statement late on 27^th saying “The north east of the city is protected from flooding by a flood protection scheme, called the Foss Barrier”.

Which rather demonstrates the need for prompt and informed communications when a crisis develops.

As one of our commentators points out,

“We seem to receive at least one severe warning each year without a trickle of water being seen in the street (Huntington Road). I guess that it’s institutional ‘crying wolf’. Neighbours say that if there had been a real local warning – from, say, a tannoy fitted to a police car, then they would have been able to save more possessions. We are all going to have to move out of homes for six months for reconstruction”.

Cllr Andrew Waller has agreed to take up any communications issues with the appropriate authorities

Coincidentally the Council will debate next week (11th Jan) a study on “E-Democracy”. The review prompted the so called engagement survey where residents were asked to say how they would prefer to communicat with the Council. Ironically the failure to publicise the survey led to a derisory level of engagement with it!

The study also failed to report on the speed of response to issues reported using existing “on line” systems. *

However, more intelligent and timely use of digital systems is undoubtedly at least part of the way forward.

Real time updates on flood levels should be possible even now, while many organisations in the business support and voluntary sector (and others) need to take a hard look at how well they have supported their clients over the last week.

Meanwhile the City remains grateful to the relatively small number of organisations and individuals who, from Monday onwards, organised themselves to meet the emerging gaps in the provision of flood relief services

*It has been confirmed that the much hyped but dysfunctional issue reporting system launched in October is in fact an interim “fix” aimed at replacing a system lost when computer systems were transferred to West Offices 18 months ago.

The new “all bells and whistles” personal account based system – originally promised for introduction in spring 2015 – is now expected to be available later this year and may be soft tested later this month.

Met Office – Red warning of rain in York area for rest of Saturday. Football and race meetings cancelled

“Heavy and persistent rain will continue to affect western parts of both West and North Yorkshire through the course of Boxing Day. The heaviest rain is expected to occur this morning, before easing for a time this afternoon. A further spell of heavy rain is then likely this evening before a clearance takes place from the northwest.

Please take action to remain safe and protect property: widespread flooding will lead to high levels of disruption to travel, deep, fast-flowing watercourses and an associated possible danger to life.

A band of rain has become slow-moving across the region. 30 to 60 mm of rain has already fallen widely, with a further 30 to 50 mm expected in some places. Some upland areas may see around 120 mm over the entire event, including the rain that has already fallen. This is expected to lead to widespread river flooding, whilst the shorter-period accumulations will result in high impacts from surface water flooding”. Met Office

STOP PRESS

Wetherby race meeting cancelled
York City v Northampton postponed

Sublime to the ridiculous?

York Council agenda hits new levels of mediocrity

York Guildhall

The agenda for the next Council meeting looks like it will be a boon for the insomniac. Apart from the proposal to increase Councillors pay – which perhaps inevitably gets the prime place on the agenda – the rest is largely a jumble of random thoughts.

There are now two Leaders reports (presumably to satisfy the rival egos of the coalition partners). Neither provides any new information. Both are comprised mainly of anecdotal commentary on what third parties have achieved (York BID, Enterprise Zone etc.).

The Council’s Leader (Chris Steward) seems to be preparing the way for a “U turn” on Council subsidies for the Guildhall project and the York Central development, together with building on the Green Belt.

His deputy (Keith Aspden) skates around the fact that, 4 months after the City offered to accommodate Syrian refugees, not a single child has arrived in the City.

The Council has changed its constitution so that written questions cannot be tabled to report authors (or any other post holder for that matter). Thus another opportunity to promote informed decision making has been lost. In its place is a limited time for verbal questions, the answers to which will be lost in a jungle of political ducking and diving.

So what should the Council Leadership have been briefing residents on? Well there are at least three obvious, and worrying, issues:

Lack of management leadership. 6 months after a temporary Chief Executive was appointed, there is still no sign of a permanent
West Offices

appointment. In turn, this means that posts further down the hierarchy remain unfilled. Some Chief Officers seem content to contribute to the anarchy by taking to the bunkers whenever residents raise (often valid) criticisms.
The absence of KPI data on street level services is a disgrace. In their absence none of the post holders at the York Council can be judged on their effectiveness.
The “front office” (the first point of contact for residents) is slow to respond and occasionally chaotic. The responsible Executive member (Council Leader) really needs to explain why a – deeply flawed – “on line” issue handling system was launched two months ago without proper testing.

Elsewhere on the agenda there are four motions. All fall into the pious hand ringing category. Passing them will make little difference to York residents as the levers for change are held by third parties (with the possible exception of a proposal on elderly people’s isolation).

Still the new Council – although shy about the urgency of decision making – is still better than the one it replaced. By this time in 2011 there had been a covert attempt to sell off the Union Terrace car park while adding £20 million to the taxpayers debt burden.

So perhaps indecision is better than hyper-decision making!

Community centre snubbed at York Council junket

Assembly rooms venue for Council jolly

The York Council’s annual bash, at which employees are recognised for going the extra mile, left a bitter taste in the mouths of some volunteers last night.

The Council’s official Twitter account announced that an award for “Contribution to the Community” goes to “Volunteers at Foxwood Community Centre”.

In reality the award was presented to the – largely Council funded – Children’s Centre which rents a room at the Foxwood Community centre from time to time. Sure Start and the Children’s Centres in the City generally do a good job and their efforts are worth recognition.

However, the Councils communications team made a crass error last night (right).

The York Council gradually reduced – to zero – the grant that it gave the community centres operating in the City. This meant that the caretakers – employed by the Council – were sacked earlier in the year. Last month, the new Coalition run authority, agreed to reinstate an annual £4000 subsidy but this is much less than is needed to sustain the Community Centres in the long term.

In the meantime, the work of running the centres now falls on a handful of hard working volunteers. None of the volunteers are seeking recognition although a more supportive approach from the City of York Council would not go amiss.

Apparently last night’s jolly – held in the Assembly Rooms – was funded by sponsorship.

Looking through the list of sponsors, many turn out to be Council suppliers and contractors.

Westfield action round up – Some of he issues that we have reported for action this week

Uneven carriageway on Windsor Garth – Longest outstanding issue and may not now be repaired until “Hob Stones” development completed late next year.

Possibly unstable tree on Herman Walk reported for inspection

External lights n during day on some Windsor Garth flats (timing clocks need re-setting)

External lights on during day on some Windsor Garth flats (timing clocks need re-setting)

Dumping reported on Dijon Avenue (and similar on little Green Lane) garage areas still not cleared up.

Drainage channels need sweeping on Gale Lane

https://www.fixmystreet.com/

Time to get salt bins repaired and filled

A quick check of the salt bins in the Westfield area yesterday revealed that most have salt in them. In some cases this has been left over from previous years – last winter was particularly mild.

Most had been used as litter bins and several had been vandalised with the lid hinges broken in many cases.

The Council promised to complete a review of it’s salt bins in September but nothing seems to have come of this. No attempt was made during the summer to recover the bins for maintenance. We hope the new Council will order that the bins be refurbished in the spring.

In the meantime – before we get the inevitable snow – the litter needs to be removed and the bins topped up where necessary.

A map of the location of salt bins in York can be accessed by clicking here

Empty and damaged salt bin on Dijon Avenue still not relocated away from former school entrance

Salt bin on Tennent Road empty

Kingsway West salt bin empty

Hinges broken on Askham Grove bin

Rubbish in salt bin in Kingsthorpe

Spindle Close – full of rubbish

Dumping on the Cornlands Road park has been reported

Delay over Community Centre funding plans

One of the key policies of the new coalition Council was the restoration of grants to Council owned Community Centres.

Foxwood Community Centre

The centres (Foxwood, Chapelfields, Bell Farm, Heworth and Burton Stone/Clifton) lost their grants under the last Labour administration and there were fears that some would close.

In July the new Council identified £70,000 to help underpin the centres. The voluntary groups currently running the centres have managed to kept them open until now.

The Council had been expected to allocate the total budget to individual centres on 14^th September but unexplained delays have dogged the process since then.

Now it appears that the Councils Environment Executive member (Andrew Waller) has been debarred from making the decision which had been scheduled to be taken in November.

Instead Deputy Council Leader Keith Aspden will agree the allocations on 3^rd December.

The is still hoped is that enough money will be made available to allow a part time caretaker to be appointed at both the Foxwood and Chapelfields centres.

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