Be ready for wintry conditions – “on line” map gives local salt bin and gritting details in York

It looks like we may get our first freeze of the winter shortly so we hope that residents will check that their local salt bins are full (and free from litter).

Its also a good idea to know which local streets are routinely de-iced by the “gritting” lorry.

Easiest way to find out where your local services are is by accessing the above map which can be found at:

http://localview.york.gov.uk/Sites/TranStreetCare/

Click i to see where your nearest salt bin is

Then click the fourth symbol along.

This will allow you to tick a box next to “primary” and” secondary” gritting routes. The primary gritting routes include most bus routes and are salted as a precaution when weather forecasts predict icy conditions.

You can find out whether the gritters are working by “following” them on twitter @yorkgritter

Crime levels increase by 11% in York in one year.

The figures have been released today by ONS reveal that in the York safer partnership area 11,997 offences were recorded.

This compared to a total of 10.794 in the previous 12 months.

The latest results cover the period to June 2016.

Overall crime in North Yorkshire increased by 6%. white-collar-crime-1

The largest increases were in

Bicycle theft up 35%
Vehicle offences up 28%
Violence up 26% and
Non domestic burglary up 25%

There were reductions in

Possession of weapons (down 32%)
Theft from person (down 19%) and
Shoplifting (down 6%)

There was also a small reduction in domestic burglary

The were 408 public order offences recorded in the City.

The figures are bound to increase pressure on the North Yorkshire Crime and Police Commissioner who was criticised for delaying the recruitment of additional police officers because of budget concerns. Those concerns didn’t materialise, leaving the force under manned. Recruitment has only recently started again.

With a third of all crime in the North Yorkshire area taking place in York, Councillors should be asking for more officers to be allocated to the City and for the tried and tested Community Constable policing model to be brought back.

Community Constables were allocated to specific wards and got to know local residents and neighbourhood crime black spots. The system was abandoned in favour of centralised units around 3 years ago.

In response to a recent survey in the Westfield Ward, only 15% of residents were able to name a neighbourhood Police or Community Support Officer.

ONS crime comparative figures 20th Oct 2016

Reuse and salvage – Questions about York approach

One of the most short sighted decisions of the York Council’s Labour administration between 2011 – 2015 was their decision to scrap plans for a “reuse and salvage” centre.

The facility could have been located at Harewood Whin and – as well as replacing the Beckfield Lane recycling facility which was closed in 2012 – would have provided 21st century salvage facilities for surplus items in the City.

Electrical equipment skip at Hazel Court.

More important, it would have introduced a more professional approach to the re-use of unwanted, but still serviceable, items.

That need is currently partly met by the internet based Freecycle and similar groups but large numbers of usable objects still find themselves in the land-fill stream.

Today, visitors to the Hazel Court amenity site witnesses a good example of the issue. One resident arrived with a set of perfectly serviceable wooden dining chairs. They would have found their way into the timber recycling skip had not another visitor offered them a new home. But that was down to luck not planning.

Recycling is more costly, and energy intensive, than simply reusing items…..even if some need repair or a coat of paint.

The Council still persists in asking residents to drop electrical goods into a steel container from a height of 3 metres jeopardising any opportunity to reuse the computers, printers, phones and other potentially valuable items which fill the skip each day.

The Council must take an independent look at the range of re-use services that are available in the city.

They then need to expand them and make sure that the options available are communicated regularly, and effectively, to local residents.

Stunner – £250,000 price tag for resurfacing Foxwood shops forecourts!

In response to petitions from local Councillors, York Council officials have reported on proposals to improve the Front Street and Foxwood shopping areas.

Foxwood Lane shops

The petitions had pointed at poor maintenance standards, with weeds and litter a constant problem.

The main criticism though was about the surface of the roads and footpaths some of which are badly rutted and uneven.

A meeting on the 13^th October will hear that highways officials have examined the roads and paths in both areas and have ordered that potholes be filled in on sections which are a part of the adopted public highway.

Officials say that they have limited powers to require the owners of the private shop forecourts to undertake safety work.

They report that they have “undertaken additional inspections following receipt of the petitions and have identified any areas where the condition of the footway is approaching or exceeding intervention levels, works have been programmed and delivered where these have been identified within the adopted highway. Letters requesting works from frontagers have been issued to address any similar areas within the unadopted areas”.

Front Street

Regeneration needed

The report goes on to say that any further uplift works must form part of a larger regeneration project. They recommend that this option be referred to the responsible Executive member with a further report.

However, they also say that

“further improvements will require significant works to reinvigorate the two areas, initial estimates could be in the region of £500,000 for Acomb Front Street and £125,000 for Foxwood.

Additional complications arise with both locations where an additional financial burden would fall to the frontagers who would be expected to contribute significant sums of a similar magnitude to facilitate improvements of the adopted and unadopted areas”.

While we have long believed that a major investment is needed to regenerate the large, complex and neglected Front Street area, the suggestion that £1/4 million needs to be spent resurfacing the Foxwood shops forecourts is ridiculous.

What is needed is an overlay of flexible surfacing – similar perhaps to that used by the Council in Library Square – plus repainting or renewal of street furniture such as the cycle rack and bins.

We hope that Councillors won’t be hoodwinked by this very obvious example of “shroud waving”.

New community profiles published for York

New statistics, which provide a detailed insight into the characteristics of each Ward in York, have been published by the Council.

The “Ward Profiles” give local details of;

the age group of residents
Religion
Employment groups
Housing tenure
Benefit claims
Unemployment
Poverty
Health
Crime
Resident satisfaction with the local area

The profiles for each ward can be accessed by clicking here

Taking the Westfield Ward as an example we can see that:

The largest section of the community is aged between 25 and 34
32% are married
94% are white British
59.2% are Christian
Most work in the retail/wholesale trade (18%) or in health/social care (15%)
57% own their own home (31.8% with a mortgage)
32% live alone
1155 live on benefits – a significant fall since 2013. There are now only 70 claiming Job Seekers Allowance
Technically, Westfield is the most “deprived” ward in York although it is steadily becoming more prosperous
18% of children are obese while 79% of resident regard themselves as being in “good or very good” health
Anti-social behaviour is above the York average
83% were satisfied with their local area as a place in which to live.
46% said that they could influence decisions in their area (much higher than for the rest of York)
55% were satisfied with the way that the Council runs things (slightly less than the City average) but an above average number (50%) felt the Council was doing well to improve the quality of street /public spaces

Resident engagement Sept 2016 Crime Sept 2016 Deprevation Sept 2016

York street cleaning maps published “on line”

Following an intervention from Cllr Andrew Waller, the Council has now published maps showing street cleaning frequencies across York.

The maps are available “on line”. Click here to access

The Council says that “in order to target our resources in the most effective and efficient way possible, we have reviewed our street cleansing schedules based on the local knowledge of front line employees. This has enabled us to identify what is actually needed rather than undertake work just because its always been done that way.

As a result of this we have commenced a trial of new street cleansing schedules in each of the wards from the beginning of August 2016 for a period of 6 months.

Although some locations may have a reduced frequency of mechanical sweeping, this means that when we do undertake mechanical sweeping we will have the time to do a more thorough job leading to improved standards of cleanliness”.

City centre footstreets

The changes do not include the city centre foot streets as this is a distinct service undertaken seven days a week, all year round, between 5.00am and 8.00pm, this service has recently been reviewed and the Council is currently working with the York Business Improvement District team on how they can work together to bring about further improvement in the city centre.

Feedback

If residents have any feedback during the 6 month trial period please email the shaping neighbourhoods team at: shapingneighbourhoods@york.gov.uk where the responses will be monitored and collated.

The Council says, “as well as giving us valuable feedback, you may wish to consider how you might be able to help with the upkeep of your local environment, this may, for example be in the way of volunteering as a snow warden or as a litter picker. See volunteering opportunities (click) page for further details and other ways to volunteer”.

Following the end of the trial, further consultation will be held followed by a report to the Executive Member for the Environments Decision Session in Spring 2017

Information event

The Council is holding an event at Hazel Court for residents on Saturday 15 October 2016 from 10.00am to 12.00pm.

The sessions will be jointly delivered between a number of council teams and external agencies.

Westfield

The schedules for the Westfield area are reproduced below. Generally, there is little change although there may be some concerns about sweeping frequencies at smaller shopping areas like Foxwood Lane.

Some publicly maintainable footpath links ( Chesneys Field, Kingsway West, The Green) are shown on the maps as “private”. These will need to be cleaned regularly as will housing department communal and garage areas.

But overall the plans seem to us to be worth a trial especially given the decision of the previous Labour administration to substantially reduce the street cleansing budget

Manual street celaning

Mechanical street cleaning

So how good are York Council services?

The results of two recent surveys allow us to measure what residents say are good and bad about City of York Council services.

The Council’s own “Talkabout” panel has given a verdict this summer.

Talkabout panel results – click to access

Best service

It is the first comprehensive look at customer satisfaction with services in the City since polls were scrapped by the, then Labour led, administration in 2013.

These can be compared to a more detailed survey being undertaken in west York where residents have also given a verdict on service quality.

The Talkabout respondents indicate that satisfaction with their local area as a place to live has increased for 83% in 2013 to 92% today.

Worst service – road repairs

66% of the panel are satisfied with the way that the Council runs thing compared to 54% three years ago

One of the few areas judged to be deteriorating was law and order. 77% said that York is relatively free from crime and violence compared to 80% in 2013.

Looking at street level services, 39% (2013 – 33%) though litter was a problem in their local area although the majority (61%) still thought litter was not a problem.

survey results as at 26th Sept 2016 Problems with vandalism showed small increases (17% up to 18%), as did drug dealing (15% up to 26%) and drunk/rowdy behaviour (25% up to 30%)

The numbers who though that the Council was doing well in at improving green spaces was static at 48% but those who thought the Council was doing well in improving streets/public spaces was down from 49% to 45%.

Looking at the more detailed poll conducted in west York, it may be significant that the 4 most criticised public services (footpath repairs, road repairs, the availability of litter bins and local car parking facilities) were not monitored in the citywide survey.

Although most residents indicated that other services were “satisfactory” there were large numbers of people who rated some services as poor.

These included weed control (31% poor), tree/hedge maintenance (36%), Policing (31%), and garage area maintenance (20%).

The top ranked services were refuse collection (91% rated satisfactory or good), recycling (92%) and street lighting (89%)

That was the week that was – west York in pictures

The week started with the Sky Ride. Local Councillor Andrew Waller was near the font of the event as a reprorted 10,000 took park

The week started with the Sky Ride. Local Councillor Andrew Waller was near the front of the event as a reported 10,000 took part

The circus came to the Thanet Road sports area. This prompted complaints about fly posting and damage to recently planted trees. Posters for events like these can be displayed for two weeks in advance but must be removed within 2 days of the event finishing. On one evening there was some disturbance in the Chesney’s Field area and a noticeable increase in litter. The Council are being asked to consider limiting the number of fairs/circuses which are permitted in residential areas in each quarter.

Cllr Sue Hunter and local residents Andrea Cropper cleared potential hazardous weeds for teh Acomb Green access steps

Cllr Sue Hunter and local residents Andrea Cropper cleared potential hazardous weeds from the Acomb Green access steps

Job Done!

Foxwood Residents Association won a gold award at this years Yorkshire in Bloom contest. They outperfromed many institutions who had been able to employ the services of professionals.

Foxwood Residents Association won a gold award at this years Yorkshire in Bloom contest. They outperformed many institutions who had been able to employ the services of professionals.

Foxwood Community centre garden

Cllr Sheena Jackson reported this offensive graffiti in the Tennent Road area. There has been an increase in graffiti issues in the area with some residents blaming the lack of high profile PCSO patrols partly for the decline.

Potholes on little Green Lane are getting bigger. Being followed up by Cllr Andrew Waller

Potholes on little Green Lane are getting bigger. The issue is being followed up by Cllr Andrew Waller

Lampposts on Bellwood drive demolished on Thursday

Lamppost on Bellwood Drive felled on Thursday

Over 30% of residents have returned the survey form issued in the Askham Lane/Grange Lane area so far.

Over 30% of residents have so far returned the survey form issued in the Askham Lane/Grange Lane area earlier in the week.

Main issues raised by residents included car parking and lack of maintenace of trees and bushes. The Grange Lane/Parker Avenue was a particular source of complaint. The snicket is overgrown and subject to littering. Some residents want to see it closed. although this is unlikely as it is a Public Right of Way.

The main issues raised by residents included poor car parking and lack of maintenance of trees and bushes. The Grange Lane/Parker Avenue alley was a particular source of complaint. The snicket is overgrown and subject to littering. Some residents want to see it closed, although this is unlikely as it is a Public Right of Way.

Many residents responding to our survey question about future events at the Acomb Explore Library have suggested Councillors surgeries. We've arranged for them to take place on the second Wednesday in each onth

Many residents, responding to our survey question about future events at the Acomb Explore Library, have suggested that Councillors surgeries be held there. We’ve arranged for Advice Centres to take place on the second Wednesday in each month starting on 12th October.

New Cornlands area Focus newsletter published

Cornlands Focus Sept 2016 page 1

Community right to bid at Holgate gardens and Blacksmiths Arms

Holgate gardens

Officials are recommending, to a meeting taking place on 12th September, that two more amenities are added to the York Councils list of assets of community value.

As reported last month, applications were made to have Holgate Gardens (Cleveland Street) and the Blacksmiths Arms pub at Naburn listed.

Officials say both applications meet the governments criteria for listing.

In effect – if the assets were put up for sale during the next 3 years – this means that local groups would have 6 months to raise money to bid for the properties.

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