There have been two shed burglaries between 19th and 20th April 2013 in the Westfield area of York.

Cycles were stolen from the sheds.

Please ensure your shed is fully locked and any cycles are secured inside.

If you see anyone acting suspiciously around sheds or outhouses please call us on 101. Westfield Safer Neighbourhood Team.

Following our earlier story, the Council have now provided (slightly) more detailed maps of where they are looking to provide more Gypsy caravan pitches as well as the proposed layover site for show people (e.g. fairground equipment).

The sites are shown hatched on the plans below. The Council are keen to point out that not all the land will necessarily be used for this purpose.

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Having argued against even having a public meeting to discuss their controversial plan to impose a 20 mph speed limit on roads in west York (and later the rest of the City), the Labour Council have now issued a media release which says

“To view proposals of how 20mph might best be implemented in the West of York as well as Bishopthorpe, Copmanthorpe and Bishophill, please visit http://www.york20mph.org/

In addition to this, plans will also be available at York Explore Library Learning Centre, local libraries in the West of York, and Energise sports centre.

Council staff will also be on hand to speak to residents at Acomb Front Street throughout April/May.

Following these events a letter will be sent to all households on the affected streets with a local plan of proposals and an explanation on how to make formal representations to the council.

The signed-only 20mph speed limits are designed to be largely self-enforcing and aim to support, strengthen and work alongside the many existing traffic calmed 20mph zones that are already in place in many residential streets and around schools in the West of the city.

Following consideration of resident’s representations their comments will be fed back to a decision session for consideration before the introduction of the proposed 20mph limits. The planned introduction is set to be in place in spring/summer 2013 and will ensure that the majority of residential roads and neighbourhoods will have a lower speed limit to help reduce speeds where people live”.

Only problem is that anyone accessing http://www.york20mph.org/ will find only the usual array of juvenile artwork and shallow arguments. Still no sign of the revised detailed proposals promised months ago.

We continue to believe that every household in West York should be consulted. Excluding those living in existing 20 mph zones – as well as the small numbers living on streets which will retain a 30 mph limit – would potentially bias the results of any survey.

A public meeting, which includes an item on the 20 mph limit, will take place at Dringhouses Primary School on Thursday, May 2. The meeting starts at 7:30pm

City of York Council has received reports from local residents saying that they have been ‘cold-called’ by people selling mattresses.

These approaches have reportedly taken the form of telephone calls to make an appointment to visit them at home, or door-to-door calls. One resident was even stopped in the street by a van driver attempting to sell one of the mattresses.

Trading Standards is advising residents to exercise caution if approached by a seller offering such items.

It is not an offence to sell goods door-to-door. But anyone with concerns about approaches that have been made to them to buy goods and who would like further advice on their rights, or who would like to report an incident, is urged to contact Trading Standards via the Citizens Advice consumer helpline on 08454 04 05 06.

The first interactive public arts event at City of York Council’s new West Offices will be setting out its stall with an exchange of creative ideas in a market run by artist John Newling with York St John University fine arts students, plus a public talk by the artist.

The nine market stalls will be open on Thursday 2 and Friday 3 May from 10am to 4pm in the approach to West Offices’ new Customer Centre entrance off Toft Green. The market is a pilot project aimed at laying the foundations for similar events in the future, and complements the council’s citywide ideas internet platform GeniUS! which invites people to share ideas to improve life in York.

Also on 2 May at West Offices, from 11:45am – 1pm, John Newling will give an illustrated talk called ‘Common Values’. This major lecture will be a rare opportunity to hear the artist talk about his work over a period of 30 years, his more recent research in York and the ideas behind the ‘Market of Hidden Labours’.

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The controversial proposal to increase the size of the City was steamrollered through a working group meeting last night (Monday).

Opposition Councillors said that they had no confidence in the chair of the meeting (Cllr Merrett) who had failed to involve other members in drawing up the 1000 page report.

Now the plan has been scheduled for discussion at the (single party) “Cabinet” meeting on Tuesday 30th April.

The agenda for the meeting (click here) was published before the working group meeting had even started!!!

So no opposition is being tolerated.

Tesco – Acomb Wood Drive – has three part time jobs available
Betfred – Gale Lane – two jobs available – all hours available

SCRAP METAL
A scrap metal dealer visits the Foxwood area every other day. If you have items for disposal, these can be left on the path (do not cause an obstruction) or driveway with a note saying that they are for collection. This relates to metal items only and no payment is given.

One aspect of the Councils announcement – that it hoped to see an additional 22,000 homes constructed in the City during the next 15 years – which raised concerns was the effect that such growth would have on transport.

We have been fortunate that traffic levels have been stable in the City for the last 5 years.

Modest improvements to some of the A1237 roundabouts have eased congestion while the Council has invested to encourage people to use buses and cycles when ever possible.

Many of these policies are to be continued in the new plan, but hopes that congestion will ease have been crushed as the Council now admits that growth in traffic of around 2.5% per annum can be expected as a result of the building boom.

It goes on to say that this will mean a substantial increase in congestion levels on most major roads in the urban area.

Dualling of part of the northern by pass (Wetherby Road to Haxby Road) will not start for at least 10 years. It pointedly fails to identify how the £200 million bill for such an upgrade would be funded.

Labours strategy seems to be to reduce still further car parking provision in the City Centre, introduce more road closures and even introduce parking charges at out of City centre retail centres.

Their intention is to force cars off the roads of York.

All in all to looks like a profoundly inadequate approach to catering for a 25% increase in the City’s size.

Good to report that the Council is doing something that might get residents approval.

They say that they “will be joining forces with York and North Yorkshire Probation Trust’s Community Payback team and local residents next month to carry out a city wide spring clean of York.
The council will be working with offenders performing Community Payback, who will be undertaking several ‘spring clean’ tasks throughout the month, such as painting over graffiti, fixing broken fencing, picking litter and clearing overgrown areas.

York residents will also have the opportunity to nominate communal spaces for the team to spruce up and help make a smarter York.

Community Payback is physically demanding work carried out by offenders as part of their community sentence on work that might not otherwise be completed”.

The spring clean will focus on different wards each week throughout May, starting on 7 May in the Westfield ward.

“The overgrown field behind Westfield School has been singled out for the team to work their magic on and transform the space for local residents”. (Hopefully that don’t mean the nature reserve!)

“For the second week the team will be focusing their efforts around the Tang Hall area, then moving on to the Bell Farm area for the third week. For the fourth week the team will be working with volunteers from various parishes and towns across the outer areas of the city.

To follow on from the work the community payback team will be doing there will be Smarter York events in the three wards and outer parishes throughout May and June. At these events residents will be able to sign up to the Smarter Charter and pledge that they will help to keep York clean and tidy.

Children are very welcome at the events where there will be several items of machinery on display and available to sit in, including a refuse truck, mechanical sweeper and a ride on mower”.

The events will be held at –

• •Foxwood Community Centre – Saturday 11 May 12pm-6pm

• •Tang Hall Community Centre – Saturday 18 May 10am-4pm

• •Bell Farm Social Hall – Saturday 25 May 10am-4pm

• •Oaken Grove Community centre, Haxby – Saturday 1 June 10am-2pm

City of York Council will be carrying out essential road resurfacing works on Mill Lane, Acaster Malbis throughout the week of 22 April.

The work will start on Monday 22 April and will last up to a week, with work taking place between the hours of 8am-5pm Monday-Friday.

In order to carry out these works safely a temporary road closure of Mill Lane will be necessary whilst works are taking place.