City of York Council is installing a new zebra crossing on Haxby Road next week to make it safer for children and families to access the play facilities in Clarence Gardens.
The council says that it has listened to requests from residents, who called for a new crossing to be placed on Haxby Road, between the Stanley Street and Neville Street junctions. This will improve access to and from the playground, Clarence Gardens, nearby bus stops, Park Grove Primary School, the Groves, York Hospital and local businesses in the area.
Works will take place from 13 to 24 July, between 8am and 5pm, Monday to Friday only. In order to carry out the work safely, temporary traffic lights will be installed.
Drivers are advised to plan ahead and if possible avoid the area when the works are taking place, to avoid congestion.
No consultation prior to “behind closed doors” decision
Pedestrian hours in York City centre will be extended from 10:30am to 8:00pm, 7 days a week. Currently they end at 4:00pm each day.
The scheme will extend to include Fossgate and Goodramgate.
Cyclists will be able to slalom through some of the affected streets.
The Council leadership claims the move is aimed at helping “traders” and says cafes and pubs will be able to “set up tables on the public highway more easily”. The change was agreed yesterday only hours after alcohol fuelled disorder returned to City centre streets.
Disabled people will be badly affected. They can no longer access the City centre streets and have so far snubbed the additional parking spaces – and free taxi service – set up at the Monk Bar car park
The Council have also failed to address the confusion over their “free parking” offer which applies to some car parks in July and August. It got off to a confused start at the weekend.
The Council says that the following public toilets are now offering a contactless payment option and will be open until 10pm
St George’s Field
Coppergate Shopping Centre –
Exhibition Square
Silver Street (contactless from next week)
There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that the Councils recent transport and other decisions reflect the wishes of either the majority of residents or of the business community. Not surprisingly out of town shopping centres seem to be recovering much more quickly from the lock-down recession, leaving the city centre vulnerable to fanciful and ill considered social engineering experiments.
New pedestrian rules imposed by Junta
What is increasingly intolerable is the failure of the Councils democratic systems. There is no reason why notice of this proposal could not have been published in advance with a decision subsequently taken at a publicly accessible meeting.
Instead it exploited an emergency delegation scheme which was intended to take the City through the worst phase of the lock-down.
The Council own “scrutiny” system has also once again been found wanting with meetings, which took place yesterday, failing to effectively challenge the decisions of the secretive “junta” which now dictates to York residents.
Changes to pedestrian hours may well be something that York people would want to trial. This option could have been included on a list as part of the Councils so called “big conversation” survey.
It wasn’t, so we don’t know peoples views.
However, given the failures of the last few weeks, they will not forgive quickly those who chose to impose their views in such a discourteous and arbitrary way.
Figures released today suggest that the government could give York an additional £693,000 to fund post COVID sustainable transport schemes in the City.
The money will come from the “emergency active travel fund”. The indicative allocations can be read by clicking here
This would be in addition to the £193,000 already allocated
The North Yorkshire County Council could be in line to receive £1,085,000 from the same fund.
York decided to spend much of its initial allocation on a controversial road closure scheme in The Groves area.
The government announced yesterday an allocation of £5 million for road maintenance on Tadcaster Road York. The local LibDem leadership promptly issued a statement saying that the money would be spent on “repairs”.
“There will be £5m each for plans to make the key route network in Liverpool more resilient, to begin further maintenance on the Swanswell Viaduct in Coventry, and for road maintenance on the Tadcaster Road in York“. – Boris Johnson
This will come as a surprise to many. Tadcaster Road (between Middlethorpe Drive and Knavesmire Gates) was resurfaced last month at a cost to local taxpayers of £600,000. This brought over a mile of carriageway up to standard.
That left a ½ mile stretch between Middlethorpe Drive and Sim Balk Lane to complete. Even taking into account the Tesco roundabout and adjacent off road cycle track (which does need to be reconstructed because of tree root damage) we wouldn’t expect resurfacing this section to cost more than £300,000.
There are many other carriageways in York which are in a much worse condition.
We hope that the Council will move quickly to confirm that the funding is intended to deal with the congestion black spot near the College entrance. There are unnecessary tail backs along Tadcaster Road at peak times as a result of large numbers of people leaving the college and using the pelican crossing.
College pelican crossing on Tadcaster Road
This is compounded by on carriageway bus stops and traffic lights at the Sim Balk Lane junction.
Even the provision of a footbridge would look like an expensive solution to this problem (and not necessarily a facility that everyone would choose to use).
It looks like the Westfield area has been snubbed in the latest highways maintenance budget allocations.
In another “behind closed doors” decision, tens of thousands of pounds, from “delegated” ward budgets, has been allocated for highway and footpath repairs plus some other work like new parking laybys.
Areas benefiting are Bishopthorpe, Clifton, Copmanthorpe, Dringhouses, Fishergate, Guildhall, Heslington, Heworth, Hull Road, Holgate, Huntington, Micklegate and Rural West.
One of the roads omitted from repair programme
The absence of Westfield from the list is doubly surprising.
Some local roads are in an appalling condition.
Local Councillors were given lists of problem locations over 6 months ago.
Poor weather in the intervening period has seen some surfaces – such as those on the Morrell Court access road – deteriorate quite markedly.
The report to the decision meeting gives details of how much money is available for local ward Councillors to manage.
It also explains the assessment process.
“The Ward Highways Capital Scheme is a four-year programme formed from £250k p.a. of capital resources set aside from the main Highways Capital Programme. It is designed to allow wards to bring forward schemes that are important to local residents but would struggle to be prioritised as part of the main capital programme. A nominal allocation is made to each ward on a population basis. Wards are able to aggregate their allocation by carrying over / bringing forward annual allocations in order to undertake more substantial schemes.
The programme was enhanced in 19/20 through the allocation of the following one-off amounts to it:
£500k to use for highways improvements in respect of Roads and Footways
£500k to use for Walking and Cycling improvements
(NB. Details of how the walking and cycling budget is being spent were published a couple of weeks ago. Yet again no projects in the Westfield area were agreed).
The Council says the aim is to use this funding flexibly to meet the needs of wards whilst taking account of all relevant legislation and statutory guidance as highways are heavily regulated environments.
The following process is used to identify schemes:
Community Involvement Officers liaise with ward councillors, residents and key partners to identify potential schemes
The Highways team bring forward condition surveys, customer requests, and safety audits for consideration by wards to help inform their decision-making together with information showing the roads in the ward that are to be repaired through the main capital programme
Ideas are taken to a ward walk-about for initial consideration followed, where appropriate, by detailed feasibility work and any appropriate community / statutory consultation
The Highways team then form the prioritised ideas as far as possible into a coherent capital programme”
Wards not receiving an allocation were Acomb, Haxby, Heworth Without, Hull Road, Holgate and Westfield.
The list of improvements that have been agreed can be viewed by clicking here
Several objections to the plans have been recorded. Most come from people who live in the affected area.
Some of the objectors have pointed to a lack of clarity on what the objectives of the exercise are and what success measures will be used? The Council is understood to be using some of the money, provided by the government to help with social distancing in the post COVID period, to fund the scheme.
At present, there is very little non local traffic using roads like Penley’s Grove Street.
Little traffic on Penley’s Grove Street this weekend.
The decision will be made by Cllr Andy D’Agorne. The decision can be “called in” for further consideration by any 3 Councillors. It would then be considered by an all party committee.
Separately the York Councils over reliance on “remote” meetings, and the delegation of major decisions to a small cabal of officials and politicians, is attracting increasing criticism.
Other Council are maintaining a more open and iterative process.
Its taken a long time, but the cycle path on Tadcaster Road (A1036) has finally been cleared of obstructions. A one metre margin has been cut and the worst of the overgrowing branches have been trimmed.
The Council still needs to apply some weed killer where grass is breaking through tde surface of the path.
There really needs to be an inspection regime put in place to avoid problems in the future on this, and other, dedicated paths.
Yorkshrie Water works in te area mean that there ae two separate raod clsures within a few hundered metres on each other today.
There are two road closures affecting Gale Lane Signs on Gale Lane warn that Tudor Road is now closed to traffic. Bus services have been diverted.Tudor Road will be closed for at least two weeks in connection with works at the Lowfields development. No special arrangements have been made for cyclists who are currently using the footpath.Gale Lane is also closed at the Foxwood Lane/Thanet Road junction. This work results from a water main burst at the weekend. The diversion is via Askham Lane.
The Council is poised to make major changes to the plans for traffic restrictions in The Groves area which were agreed last year.
According to a report being considered at a meeting on 22nd June, additional road closures will be implemented. Some additional “on street” parking spaces will be lost.
The closures could be implemented within 2/3 weeks. The experimental traffic order would last for up to 18 months.
The revised plans include several “contraflow” cycle lanes on relatively narrow streets – a system criticised on safety grounds by some cyclists.
An expected restriction of school “drop off” arrangements has not materialised.
The Council has been reluctant to publish traffic modelling figures which would reveal the impact on congestion, journey times and pollution in this part of the City.
Residents comments
A large number of objections to the original plans were received by the Council. Residents were concerned about additional pollution on the longer diversion routes. Some cited difficulties with severance from key facilities like the hospital and Monks Cross. Others said that deliveries would be hampered while some local shops and businesses said that, if passing trade was lost, then they might close.
The haste to implement additional restrictions under the cloak of a COVID response will cause more general concerns. The City centre economy faces a major challenge over the next few months. Either people will return to shop there despite restrictions on public transport, or they will go elsewhere. Those measures, along with plans to close the key Castle car park, may be bad news for those retailers who are on the financial brink.
While the current lower traffic volumes may appear to be an opportunity for experiments, as we try to move out of recession, a more cautious approach is required.
The York Council has published for the first time its post lockdown strategy. The report was considered and agreed today. There was no prior consultation.
The Council has decided to make Coppergate one way (east to west) cutting one of the City’s key bus routes for the next 6 months “or until a vaccine is available”. Cyclists will be able to continue to use the street in both directions although, at the “pinch point” near the Coppergate centre entrance, this may compromise social distancing objectives.
The Council strategy says there will be, ”Active discouragement of the use of public transport and the promotion of walking and cycling”. (Paradoxically the Council has also announced today a bid for funding for more electric buses)
The Council isn’t expecting many retail workers to return to City centre jobs much before December. Restaurant and pub (hospitality) workers may be out of a job for even longer.
More local and county residents are expected to start to visit the City centre from the autumn together with smaller numbers of day visitors from other parts of the region. Later they will be joined by tourists from other parts of the country.
International tourists are not expected to return in any numbers before the late Spring of 2021.
The “strategy” pointedly does not propose a marketing plan aimed at actually promoting the City, and its key visitor/retail economy, over the next few months.
The Council leaders plan involves the closure of the key (for the retail economy) Castle car park without its planned multi storey replacement being opened at St Georges Field.
The notoriously unreliable “pay on exit” mechanisms will also be rolled out to all car parks – negating the social distancing preferred option of contactless payment via smart phone Apps.
The strategy offers little for the suburbs. The option of encouraging devolved open air markets is not even mentioned. There is no publicity support on offer for neighbourhood businesses. More cycle parking is, however, promised.
Many may have sympathy with a key message included in the strategy which “proposes to invest and make bold interventions to create new networks of park and cycle hubs, priority cycle routes, subsidised cycle hire and cycle parking to prioritise active travel”.
Those reading further will see that there are no actions proposed to address the natural barriers to two wheeled transport (poor infrastructure, uneven highways, obstructed paths, etc.) Much less does the statement recognised that some sections of the community because of distance, fitness, luggage or just poor weather, simply don’t have a realistic two wheeled travel option.
No forecasts of modal change are included. The Council simply doesn’t seem to know what effect implementing such a rag bag of tactical polices might have.
So we judge the document to be a profoundly superficial and disappointing proposal shuffled into the light of day with no prior consultation and apparently lacking even sensitivity to the difficult choices now facing many sections of the community.
Hopefully work will have already started on producing something more convincing. First step should be to regain the trust and supportl of local residents.
rs” decision, tens of thousands of pounds, from “delegated” ward budgets, has been allocated for highway and footpath repairs plus some other work like new parking laybys.
