Hazel Court HWRC opening hours extended for essential visits

City of York Council is extending the opening hours of Hazel Court Household Waste Recycling Centre (HWRC) from Monday 8 March.

This will bring forward the later opening hours, which were due to start in April – for strictly essential journeys only. The new opening times will be:

  • Mondays to Saturdays: 8.30am to 7pm
  • Sundays: 8.30am to 4pm

In recent weeks, there has been a huge demand for the HWRC site, with an increase of around 30 per cent in visits, which has resulted in queuing problems in the area.

The extended opening hours hopes to address this issue and in addition to this Yorwaste, who manage the sites, have made further adjustments to make on site bays clearer and have increased the number of garden waste and cardboard skips.

Traffic monitoring will be in place at sites and due to safety concerns regarding queueing outside of the sites, residents may be asked to leave and return at another time.

Kerbside garden waste collections will also resume from 29 March. Check your garden waste collection dates via our online waste collection calendar.

In addition to this, traders are permitted to use Harewood Whin to dispose of their waste too. For more information on this visit www.yorwaste.co.uk/commercial-waste/ . Commercial waste tipping times are will remain the same Monday to Friday, between 8.30am to 4.30pm, not at weekends.

NHS moves to Community Stadium on Monday

From Monday, March 8 the NHS blood taking service for York will be based at the Monk’s Cross stadium.

It is the first in a range of NHS outpatient’s services that will move to the community setting.

The blood service (Phlebotomy) is currently based at Peppermill Court.

The service, run by York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, offers both booked appointments and a drop in service weekly from Monday to Friday, 8am-5pm.

Parking is free for two hours and the stadium can be easily reached on public transport.

In the coming months the blood taking service will be followed by outpatients clinics for rheumatology, musculoskeletal, ophthalmology and sleep services.”

The trees are going

Tree felling work was going on today in the Museum Gardens.

There is a project in the area which will see flood resilience improved.

Not everyone will be pleased to see the loss of mature tree canopies.

Still the work does provide at least a short term opportunity to view the Yorkshire Museum and The Hospitium from normally obstructed angles.

The trees are coming

The scale of the York Council’s afforestation plans are becoming clearer.

A meeting taking place next week will hear that increasing York’s tree cover from the current 10.76% of the total area to 13% (national average) by 2050 would require 608 ha of new cover, or 21 ha per year.

York currently has 2,926 ha of tree canopy cover, representing 10.8%
of its total area. 60% of this canopy cover is made up of trees outside
woodlands.

The report says, “the rate of viable delivery imposes a significant constraint on new canopy cover. The York Community Woodland project (Knapton Forest) in West York aims to deliver 50-60 ha of new tree cover over the next two years.

A 13% target for 2050 would require a similar level of growth every two years“.

City of York Council is a member of the White Rose Forest (WRF)
partnership which aims to provide tree canopy across large parts of Yorkshire.

The WRF project assumes an ambition for a 13% target for tree canopy cover by 2050, equating to around 22-27 ha per annum. This target would result in “an annual carbon sequestration rate at 2050 of circa 9,000tCO2 per year; equivalent to around 1% of the regions total CO2 emissions between 2020-2050“.

As with the Knapton Forest project, there has been no public consultation on the plan. The costs are unknown although, based on the Knapton land values, they could mean a taxpayers bill for several hundred million pounds.

The report doesn’t assess the scope for increasing tree canopy cover on existing amenity areas or private gardens.

The effect on food production is also unclear. The areas selected for afforestation are mainly grade 2 agricultural land.

They cover large areas near Poppleton, Skelton and Elvington.

click for detail

93 per cent of young people get their first choice of secondary school in York

Secondary school admission figures for entry in September 2021 reveal that 93 per cent of York children – 1793 – have been allocated their first preference of school.

This is an increase of 4.4 per cent on last year’s figures.

City of York Council’s figures published today (1 March) show that 98.2 per cent of pupils got one of their five preferences, an increase of 1.9 per cent on last year’s figures.

Parents who applied online can find out where their child has been allocated a place by logging into their parent portal account today via www.york.gov.uk/SecondarySchoolAdmissions. Parents who made written applications will receive a letter confirming their admission arrangements. Anyone who didn’t receive their first choice of school will also receive written information.

This year’s admissions figures, compared with last years are outlined below:

 20202021
ChoiceQuantity%Quantity%
1st173188.9179393.3
2nd1226.3774.0
3rd260.5150.8
4th100.520.1
5th20.100
Other562.9341.8
Total19471001921100
Applied Online193199.2184496.0

34 pupils didn’t get any of their preferences. These were largely made up of parents or carers who did not apply for their catchment school, despite being advised to do so, preferring to apply for schools a considerable distance from their home.

The total size of the cohort starting school in September 2021 is 1921 pupils, compared to 1947 last year.

Councillor Keith Orrell, Executive Member for Education, Children and Young People, said:

“I’m delighted that so many young people will be able to attend their first choice of secondary school this year.

“I know it’s been an incredibly difficult time over the last few months and I hope that knowing their plans for September will help young people start to look to the future.

“I wish all those starting a new school in September the best of luck with the next phase of their learning journey.”

Any parent whose children may be eligible for free school meals – one of a number of benefits that come with applying for the pupil premium – should apply through their online account at www.york.gov.uk/parentportal.

Road works set to continue on Tadcaster Road

Road users face several more months of congestion on one of York’s main arterial routes.

We commented on Friday that it seemed that gas main works at Micklegate Bar would not be finished by todays deadline.

Gas main replacement work on Tadcaster Road 27th February 2021

Further down the route gas main laying is edging forward but with no end in sight.

Work at the St Helens Road junction is due to start tomorrow.

Now the Council has said that it will also start drainage testing, cleaning and improvement works on the section from the A64 to the Askham Bar roundabout.

The work is expected to last for 5 weeks. (This is the section of carriageway which wasn’t resurfaced last year). Most of the work is expected to take place in the late afternoon or overnight.

When this work is completed, works are planned for the section between Askham Bar and Blossom Street.

The improvements are expected to cost around £5 million.

While we think that the Council is right to get as much work done, on well used roads, while traffic levels are relatively low, we are not convinced that the last years work, and this years projects, could not have been better coordinated.

Micklegate road works nearing completion

According to the Council web site works on replacing gas mains in Micklegate and Blossom Street are due to be completed today (26th February 2021).

Works in St Helens Road are due to start on Monday

The restrictions at Micklegate Bar have been awkward for pedestrians and cyclists, while other vehicles have been banned from using the route altogether.

Some attempt has recently been made to allow for cycle movements to be restored through the Bar.

Yesterday there still appeared to be a lot of work remaining to be completed.

Limited progress on pothole repairs

Of six highway defects reported on Saturday, the Council has agreed to address only two of them.

Further work is promised on Gladstone Street and School Street.

Gladstone Street and School Street

Elsewhere it seems there is no prospect of repairs on Walker Drive, Vincent Way, Hotham Avenue or Lowfields Drive

  • Lowfields Drive – Council won’t fill in potholes

The Council seems to be no closer to bitmacing the small section of verge on Kingsway West, near Newbury Avenue, which has been subject to overrun damage for over 5 years now

We understand that the Council is considering using the little Green Lane garage area as a compound during housing modernisation works. A storage unit has already appeared there

Work on new Foss barrier progressing

Work on the replacement Foss barrier is progressing again as river levels fall.

The huge new gate was lifted into place last month

The original barrier was installed in 1987 but was overwhelmed in the 2015 floods.

A new pumping house has been installed along with the barrier and improved banking.

The cost of the project is put at £37 million.

In a separate scheme, the nearby “Blue Bridge” cycle and pedestrian facility was also refurbished last year.