Council to increase charges by £154,000 with car parking rates still to be announced

The York Council has published a list of proposed increases in the charges that it makes for some services.

Bulky household waste collections will now cost £36.75 for a maximum of 10 items.

Removal of fridges will cost £21.

Wealthy to dominate tennis again?

Wealthy to dominate tennis again?

The increases could further worsen the problems with dumping that have been multiplying since the Beckfield Lane recycling centre closed last year.

Room hire at the central Library will cost a whopping £69 an hour while a 30 person capacity room at Acomb Library will cost £52.50 per hour (£34.60 for non profit making organisations).

Tennis will cost £7-40 per hour and bowls £4.20.

A full sized allotment (200 – 450 sq yards) will cost £104 a year with effect from January

There are massive increases in charges for the Guildhall. A Saturday morning hire will cost £225 (currently £170).

Council budget meetings poorly attended

Council budget meetings poorly attended

Hire charges for a small committee room are up by 25% to £25 an hour.

Other charges – including the significant car parking rates which bring in £7.4million a year for the Council – will be decided in January.

There has been no consultation with residents on charges and they are pointedly omitted from the budget discussions taking place around the City.

Not surprisingly, these meetings have been very poorly attended.

A full list of proposed charges can be found here.

York Council loses dozens of complaints

My Council

At least 50 reports about failing public service standards in York have not been actioned by the Council over the last couple of months.

The Council has claimed that reports submitted via the popular “My Council” Mobile app were not processed because they were indecipherable when uploaded to the Council.

Rather than get to the bottom of the problem, the reports were ignored.

Now an administrator for the “My Council” web provider (abavus.co.uk) has stepped in and offered to sort out the difficulties.

More and more people are using web sites like “My Council”, Fix my Street  , and Fill that hole”  to report issues.

This is to the advantage of Councils because the costs of processing issues electronically are much less than hard copy mail, personal callers or telephone communications.

However this case is likely to damage the credibility of the system in some residents eyes.

The Councils own mobile app (Smarter York) allows only a very small number of issues to be reported and user numbers have been disappointing.

The “Report it” section of the Council web site is cumbersome and has similar limitations.

The Council has been asked to sort out its data interface problems, ensure that reports blocked over the last couple of months are now entered onto its systems and to make efforts to contact those residents who may be unaware that issues that they have reported have not been actioned.

The industry generally needs to do more work on interface issues.

Councils in other parts of the country may be affected by incompatibility issues

Day out in Scotland

Edinburgh Councillors react to James Alexander leaving City

Edinburgh Councillors react to James Alexander leaving City

Apparently the York Councils Leader and Chief Executive are on a day trip to Edinburgh.

This may be something to do with the upcoming Scottish independence referendum.

An opt out vote would increase the foreign travel opportunities which senior York Council nobs seem to find so attractive.

The Edinburgh Council currently has a Labour/SNP coalition running it.

Like Labour in York, the Edinburgh Council has been mired in controversy over land sales and Green Belt developments.

Lowfields older peoples village to get dementia care support

Artists impression of new "care village"

Artists impression of new “care village”

Dementia Care specialist, Dementia Care Matters, is to help provide high quality care to those suffering from the condition in York.

 

Dementia Care Matters will advise the council on the operating model for its two new specialist dementia care Elderly Person’s Homes at Lowfield and Burnholme, as well as supporting and training existing care home staff to ensure they can deliver specialist care in the new homes.
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Tang Hall community centre funding probe

Residents in the Tang Hall area are asking why a £10,000 grant made last year for the improvement of the Tang Hall Community Centre has not been spent?

The money was part of the very much reduced budget now made available to Ward Committees.

It was to have been spent on remodelling the Centre, making it potentially easier to generate additional income.

The Centre is one of 4 in the City which are under threat of closure following the decision of the Council to stop its annual support grants.

Tang Hall CC, was at the centre of a controversy earlier in the year, when all the key posts on the management committee were taken over by local Labour Councillors.

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LibDem Councillor Ann Reid outside Moor Lane Youth Centre

LibDem Councillor Ann Reid outside Moor Lane Youth Centre

We also understand that the Council is considering closing down the Moor Lane youth centre in Dringhouses.

The well established and popular centre serves the whole of the west of York and is one of very few purpose designed facilities aimed at young people in the City’s suburbs.

Several days out in Dusseldorf, Seoul, Rio, Shanghai, Chicago, New York, Paris, Nice, Cape Town, etc

Seoul

Seoul

The York Council has now published a list of foreign travel trips made by members and officials in the period from May 2011 to June 2013.

The list ends before the latest round of Tour De France related trips to Paris.

The full list can be downloaded from here.

NB. Some of the travel and hotel costs were covered by third party sponsorship

Day out in London

The Press have taken up the case of local Councillor Sonja Crisp who – as was reported on this web site last month – is prone to making trips to London at taxpayer’s expense.

The trips were not in themselves particularly expensive or exceptional, but her attempts to justify the £800 plus bill lacked conviction.

Portraying York on the national stage could mean anything.

Trip Advisor launches new guide

Trip Advisor launches new guide

At a time when the Council says that it can’t afford to spend £50 topping up salt bins, every expense should be challenged.

The Local Government Association (LGA) is little more than a talking shop and such business as it transacts (basically lobbying central government) is in the hands of a few leading councillors (none of whom are from York).

The minutes of the “Culture, Leisure and sports Board” meetings are publicly available and can be found here.

Neither suggests that the Council’s representative even uttered a word.

It would probably have gone unnoticed if the Councillor had not got “form”

Click

She also has the most fluid Register of Interests ever seen on the York Council web site. It includes a visit to Blackpool in August to participate in the “Baltic States Knowledge Exchange Visit 2013” (!!!)

Still it’s not as bad as the Labour MP, who claimed back – from taxpayers – 40p for the cost of buying a bottle of milk!

Cllr Crisp has to justify her activities to the next York Council meeting which takes place on 12th December.

She might anticipate some probing questions on her well travelled approach to Council work.