The Community Stadium saga has taken a new turn, with the Council admitting that it may not get the full £3.8 million which the developer has promised to pay for land allocated for three restaurants.
The units are unlet and if they remain so on the opening date, then the Council could receive £1.4 million less for its interest.
June 2019 Council report
The Council says that discussions are ongoing with several potential
tenants.
A report the Councils Executive confirms that building work
on the stadium should be completed in September. The buildings would then be
handed over to the operators who will be responsible for obtaining a safety
certificate. The Council claims that it still opens the stadium will be operational
in October but that seems optimistic to many observers.
In the meantime, the Knights Rugby team continue to play their matches at Bootham Crescent. The Council plans to increase their subsidy to the club from £30,000 to £45,000 to compensate for the delays in moving to Monks Cross.
The stadium project cost £22.6 million during the 2018/19 financial year
The York Council courted controversy 2 years ago when it announced that the “replacement” football pitches – for those lost to the Lowfields development – would be provided on a site lying between Tadcaster Road and Bishopthorpe.
Playing fields at Lowfields have been dug up
The site is nearly 3 miles from Lowfield and does not have a direct public transport link.
In December 2017, the Councils Executive approved a £400,000 contribution from the Lowfields budget towards the Bishopthorpe plan. The project will provide a new home for the Bishopthorpe White Rose Football Club.
The new pitches must be ready before the new homes, being built at Lowfields, are occupied. Work on building the homes is due to start in August with road and some other infrastructure already in place.
Now a report to a meeting taking place next week reveals that the Council is to make a substantially greater contribution to the pitch project than has hitherto been admitted.
The Council will now, additionally, contribute £110,000 from Section 106 developer payments intended to provide alternative open space.
A further £300,000 will come from a “Lowfields developer contribution”. (The Council is, of course, the developer at Lowfields).
In total, therefore, the Council plans to spend around £850,000 on the scheme which, although it includes a clubhouse, now looks to be a very expensive way of providing 3 football pitches.
The Bishopthorpe football club itself will contribute £80,000, with the balance of £1/2 million coming from the Football Foundation.
Residents are bound to be angry about this latest example of
Council duplicity.
There is land available much nearer Lowfields which would benefit from open space investment. There is, for example, under-used land located between the built-up area and the ring road off Askham Lane.
…But this seems to have been overlooked as the local authority continues to snub the Westfield area.
NB. It also appears that Council officials have made no progress in finding an alternative location for the Kingsway games area. That facility is now being used as a building compound. The Council agreed 3 months ago to seek an alternative site on a nearby sports area and was to have opened negotiations with the current occupiers. Little progress seems to have been made
Ageing and outdated traffic signals on the Blossom Street pedestrian crossing are set to be replaced this month by City of York Council.
Works will start on Sunday 30 June and are estimated to finish on Thursday 11 July.
Blossom Street
New, more reliable, traffic signals will be installed and improvements will be made to the pedestrian crossing outside the cinema too.
The new technology being installed will help to improve journey times and reliability on Blossom Street and ease congestion in the area.
The new traffic signals will also be cheaper to run and more reliable. It will also enable the new systems to link direct to the council’s Traffic and Control Centre, so that the Network Monitoring Officers can manage the flow of traffic better in busy periods by adjusting traffic lights to best suit traffic conditions.
To help minimise disruption work will be carried out from 9.30am – 4pm during the week and also will take place on Saturdays and Sundays from 8am – 4pm. Temporary signals replicating, as closely as possible, the current operation of the junction will be in place throughout the works.
To allow for the works to be undertaken safely it will be necessary, at certain times, to close lanes. This will only be undertaken outside the peak periods to limit traffic disruption and delay.
During the works it is anticipated that there will be significant delays when travelling through the junction.
A temporary signalised crossing will be provided during construction to allow pedestrians to cross the road safely. Pedestrian route, cycle routes and access to all businesses and properties will be retained throughout the duration of the works.
Those using the route are urged to plan ahead, allow more time for journeys on these routes and to consider alternatives and to use public transport where possible. Bus services will be operating as normal for the majority of the works but passengers are requested to visit www.itravelyork.info/for more information.
An application has been made to declare three local buildings as “assets of community value”.
The buildings are;
The Hurst Hall Community Centre, Border Road, Strensall Camp,
York,
Lendal Post Office, 22 Lendal, York and
Golden Ball Public House, 2 Cromwell Rd, Bishophill,
The York Council will consider the applications on 15th
July
If successful, the local groups would have the opportunity
to raise funds to buy the buildings from their current owners, should they be put
on the market for sale.
The designation does not guarantee that the buildings would continue
in their present use.
A couple of months ago the Local Government Ombudsman criticised
the York Council for the time it was taking in dealing with applications to have
Public Rights of Way (PROW) declared.
The Council has a long waiting list. It can sometimes take several years for the applications to be processed.
Some PROW access points are in a poor state of repair
Two applications are to be considered by the Council at a meeting being held on 25th July. They concern public footpaths at the following locations
The meeting on 18th July will be told that government
legislation will make some aspects of PROW decision making simpler.
The Deregulation Act 2015 will have an effect on historic
rights of way.
The Act makes changes to existing legislation affecting rights of way aimed at streamlining the application procedures for new rights of way under which landowners will have a greater say.
The key area of improvement relates to the process for determining applications.
Local Authorities are given the power to divert a route at the application stage should it not be suitable (for example where it runs through property such as working yards where there is a significant risk).
Other changes include restrictions
on how long an application can remain at each stage of the process, gating
of rights of way and the introduction of a basic evidence test. Many of the
changes are aimed at ‘historic rights of way’ – routes based on documentary
evidence from before 1949.
In order to provide certainty
for landowners about what rights of way exist on their land, the government
intends to close the definitive maps to claims of historic paths which existed
before 1949 on 1 January 2026
NB. Amongst the PROW applications in the York Council queue to be considered is one, crossingAcomb Moor, linking Foxwood Lane to Osprey Close. Safety on the link has been criticised because of lack of maintenance of one of the stile accesses.
We’ll get an idea of the calibre of the newly elected York Councillors
this week when they begin to consider how to scrutinise the management performance
of the local authority.
A series of updates are being presented.
A typical reportis being tabled on housing and community safety issues on 24th June.
Litter blights some neighbourhoods
What is immediately clear is that no performance indicators have
been tabulated (or referenced out). Councillors aren’t being told how long it
takes to do things, what any backlogs are, what quality checks are in place or
what the levels of public satisfaction are.
Some of the information is available on York Open Data but you have to search for it. Many of the figures are not up to date.
Some major issues are not mentioned at all.
Empty garages reduce local authority rent income
The housing section fails to even mention empty Council
garages, tenants don’t feel they can influence decisions (most tenants organisations
have folded) and there are delays on the Housing Estate Improvement programmes.
Similarly on community safety (mainly policing matters) anti-social
behaviour in sub-urban areas hardly gets a mention. Trends in drug and alcohol
abuse are not quantified. Vandalism, criminal damage, graffiti, all of which disfigure
residential areas, are ignored. The trend in the number of prosecutions for this
type of offence and similar environmental crimes (litter, dog fouling) is not revealed.
Graffiti scars some streets.
The challenge for new Councillors will be not so much to question
the information that has been provided by officials, but more to probe the
areas where reports are silent.
Seems the City is set too be overwhelmed by weeds this week. Ideal growing conditions mean that areas which have not been treated for weed growth are rapidly turning green.
If left untreated, weeds can break up footpath surfaces and paving leading to costly repair bills.
Bad Bargain Lane is one area where the York Council have yet to tackle weed growth Private forecourt area like the Woodthorep shops also need attentionResidents groups in some areas are taking action to cut down nettles and other weedsHeavy rain recently has highlighted the need to address ponding problems on roads like Bell House Way
Work has stared on building a new 80 bed care home at the Burnholme site.
When completed, the Council will have the right to fill 25 of the beds
A lot of building work going on at Burnholme
Work is also proceeding on renovating sports facilities on the Burnholme site. A new library complex has already opened.
The care home being built on the Fordlands Road site (by Octopus
Health care) will be completed in the summer of 2020. A site for another home
has been reserved in the new York Central development.
The progress being made on these sites contrasts with other projects
aimed at addressing the needs of the City’s increasing elderly population on the
west of the City.
Tenders are only now being sought for the long awaited elderly persons facility on the Lowfields site. Other specialist homes on the west of the City, such as Windsor House and Lincoln Court have already been cleared of their elderly occupants.
One embarrassment for the Council, is the elderly persons home at Oakhaven. Residents were controversially movedfrom this building 3 years ago.
Despite some temporary uses, the building has remained largely unused ever since.
The Council has not been able to say when work on a replacement will start.
The Council says that it will start building houses at Lowfield
this summer. Many will be “shared ownership” although there seems to have been
little research done on the size of the market – among those on the waiting
list – for this type of tenure.
There is, however, a lot of demand from older people – currently occupying large council and housing association houses – who want to “downsize” to bungalows or flats.
Work has started on constructing the Tudor Road access onto the Lowfields site. A new lay-by has been provided nearby.
While we remain critical of the Councils plan to build on the playing field at Lowfield, it also now seems that they may have got the mix of home types wrong.
There should have been more bungalows.
The issue of the Yorspace” communal housing development – which is not classified as “affordable” – has also still not been resolved.
Police officers investigating a collisioninvolving a 12-year-old girl and a motorcycle in York have arrested two more people in connection with the incident.
A 29-year-old York man was arrested at 8pm on Wednesday 12 June 2019 on suspicion of causing serious injury by dangerous driving and failing to stop. He has been released on conditional bail.
Two more people have been arrested – a 30 year-old York man and 25 year-old York woman on suspicion of assisting an offender. Both have been released under investigation whilst enquiries continue.
The girl remains in a critical but stable condition in hospital.
