North Yorkshire Police is appealing for information after a member of staff was assaulted at the McColl’s store on Gale Lane, Acomb.
The incident happened at around 9.10pm on Saturday 14 September and involved a male who went into the store and assaulted a member of staff.
Anyone with information that could assist the investigation should contact North Yorkshire Police on 101, select option 2, and ask for Ben Sykes. You can also email Benjamin.sykes866@northyorkshire.pnn.police.uk If you wish to remain anonymous, you can pass information to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
Please quote the North Yorkshire Police reference number 12190171098.
Almost comatose leadership has allowed the York Council to
slip into a £20.2 million project which will see the Guildhall and neighbouring
development site converted into a business club and restaurant.
Weed infested, stonework stained, windows caked with dirt. The neglect of the Guildhall since 2012
Neglect of the Listed building since 2012 means that some of
the money will be needed to underpin parts of the old building while an new roof
will also be necessary.
On even the most optimistic of income estimates, York Council
taxpayers will be left with an annual bill of £574,000. Most of this is interest
charges on additional borrowings of £16 million.
The York Councils PR department has been busy working on a, very awkward looking, video seeking to justify the £20 million scheme. Their time might have been better spent updating residents on what is being done to address failings with the bin emptying service, overgrown paths etc.
There have been numerous occasions over the last 8 years where decisive leadership interventions could have reduced the risk to taxpayers. (click)
So now we move on to managing the contract and subsequently letting the newly created space.
The Council has committed itself to a £20 million cost envelope and an opening date in “spring 2021”.
The Councils record on major capital projects has not been good in recent years. The £42 million Community Stadium costs escalated from an original plan to invest £16 million and, 3 years after its target completion date, it is still not open.
Taxpayers will be monitoring progress on the Guildhall project with anxiety. Even after completion the authority will be faced with the task of renting out the new office space for £595,000 per annum. Failure to do so would mean an increased subsidy from taxpayers.
Ironically the Council may then find that it is in competition with itself as some of he office space being built at the Community Stadium site has still not found an occupier.
The traffic islands at the junction of Station Road, Poppleton with the A59 have been cleared of weeds and detritus by the Council. The long overdue improvement has given this key entry into the City a much needed boost.
There is still a lot of work to do removing weeds from the gutters while some of the trees still need cutting back from the paths.
….and thanks to the York Bid team who have completed the removal of weeds, cans and detritus from the Ouse Bridge parapet. Another busy location given a much needed face-lift.
City of York Council’s Executive will receive an update on the improvements to York’s Outer Ring Road (YORR) at next week’s Executive including funding bids to dual sections of the ring road.
Due to challenges with acquisition of land through negotiation, the report requests that the Executive approve, in principle, that the council could pursue Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPO) to acquire the necessary land to deliver the Monks Cross Junction improvements, although negotiations with land owners will continue in the meantime to try and avoid this.
It will also recommend that the Council borrows £5 million to enable the delivery of the upgraded Clifton Moor Roundabout with a future proofed design to provide access and a pedestrian/ cycle underpass to a proposed new housing development within the Draft Local Plan. It recommends that officers identify opportunities to reduce the CYC contribution through external funding (HIF, developer contributions etc.) which if successful will reduce overall CYC borrowing.
The report, if approved, will request officers to undertake a study of how the benefits of any dualling of the ring road can enable greater sustainable transport options across the city as travel around the ring road becomes easier.
The outer ring road roundabout upgrade scheme will see a total of seven roundabouts upgraded as part of the West Yorkshire Plus Transport Fund scheme.
It is hoped that increasing the capacity of the city’s outer ring road will help to redistribute traffic in and around the city, enabling residents and visitors to move around more sustainably and positively benefit city centre air quality
The York Outer Ring Road improvements programme is being funded through the West Yorkshire-plus Transport Fund, and the Leeds City Region Growth Deal – a £1 billion package of Government investment through the West Yorkshire Combined Authority and Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership (LEP) to accelerate growth and create jobs across Leeds City Region.
The electric vehicle “hyper hub” vehicle rapid recharging points planned to be installed at Poppleton and Monks Cross have trebled.
Solar canopy
In Marcha report quoted the cost at £700,000. The scheme envisaged the use of a solar canopy with battery storage facilities. The scheme was to have been funded entirely from central government grants.
Existing Council owned charging points, although criticised
for poor maintenance standards, have
usage rates of over 1500 sessions per month, and have also been a catalyst for
the use of electric buses on the Park&Ride network. York is an air quality
management area with regular exceedances of NO2 levels in urban highly
populated areas due principally to transport emissions resulting in air
pollution.
High power charging brings challenges for the UK local grids
in providing short term peak power capacity and reducing the carbon intensity
of fuels from a national grid perspective. The Hyper Hubs aims to resolve both
of these issues by reducing the peak power demand on the grid and prioritising
renewable energy supply through the supply of low carbon energy generated on
site.
The plans envisage 8 recharging points at each site. The electric vehicle infrastructure element of the project is to purchase and install the DC ‘hyper’ charging points (faster than current ‘rapid’ charge speed points at 50kW) which will supply the energy to the vehicles. These will be installed in a Hub of eight car bays which can supply up to 150kW power output per car, with a typical charging session taking 10-20 minutes. By way of comparison, a typical home charging point takes around eight hours to charge an electric vehicle.
A typically electric vehicle will have between 30kWh and
100kWh of battery capacity. Most vehicles will be able to travel 4~5 miles per
kWh. A typical charging session on a 150kW charger would give ~200 miles range
in 20 minutes depending on the battery pack’s initial state of charge.
Earlier in the year the project was criticised for prioritising
out of town locations for the chargers. It was pointed out that the terraced
streets which are generally located towards the City centre did not have easy
access to rapid chargers and that a more conventional approach to power supply
might there have greater results. (The Council have abolished ResPark charging
discounts for other than ULEVs).
That controversy may reappear now with the cost per recharging point having soared to £138,000 each. It means that the Council will not be able to fund alternatives either in the form of better cycling facilities (better road repairs) or many more rapid charging units at a cost of less than £30,000 per unit.
The cost of installing 50 on street chargers (of which a
government subsidy would be available) would be in the region of £250,000.
York taxpayers are being asked to contribute around £400,000 to the costs of the hyper hubs.
It is unclear what fees will be payable by users of the chargers
The Council says that the reliability of its existing charging hub network is improving.
“In 2013 City of York Council led the way in encouraging low
emission vehicle usage by installing a range of APT (brand) public charging
infrastructure sites for electric vehicles around the City. However, being an
early adopter has meant that much of the estate is now life expired, unreliable
and some of the charge points have 3 pin sockets which no longer meet The
Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulations 2017”.
Whilst the ambition to install EV was positive and the
outcome was good at the time, this was not supported by a wider strategy
associated with the installations in terms of the overall management, support
and maintenance.
In response to this, the assets have now been moved in terms
of responsibility and an audit of the current estate has been undertaken.
At the time of the
audit around 44% of the chargers were operational.
Full Council approved £25k to invest in the short-term
repair and maintenance of the assets.
The Transport Systems
team is now in the process of commissioning the work to put in place the
repairs to the assets and 84% of the charging units are now functional
The shipping container village on Piccadilly may look a little different this winter. Spark has applied for planning permission to install plastic sheeting to close the gap between the canvass roof and the side of the development.
No sign yet of the cladding being installed. Nor has the council confirmed that they have received their share of the “profits” on the enterprise from last year.
Most of the tin cans which blighted Ouse Bridge have been removed. Still a bit of work to do on the weeds but it is less unsightly now. The Hob Moor hedge which was obstructing Kingsway West has been cut backStill some issues with hedges blocking footpaths. This one on Foxwood LaneThis one on the snicket access to Hob Moor from Holly Bank Grove
