The Council was told this week that it needed to investment more in road maintenance. That has been obvious for over 5 years following budget cuts in the early part of this decade.
Frost is now accelerating the deterioration in places such as Foxwood Lane and Bellhouse Way.
It is important that issues are reported to the Council.
If you use the Councils “report it on line” system it will generate a reference number automatically.
This helps to identify the issue if you have to follow it up later.
The system doesn’t produce update reports for highways issues in the same way that litter, graffiti and fly tipping are automatically tracked. Progress on these types of issues can be viewed in the residents personalised issue folder after you log in.
Potholes on Foxwood Lane. Report ref; 191212-000048
It looks increasingly likely that the Council will abandon its attempt to find a developer who is prepared to provide and run an elderly persons care home on the Lowfields site.
Current Lowfield development plan
Part of the old school building section of the site has been reserved for the provision of a new care home since 2010.
It was announced earlier in the year that no tenders had been received for provision of the home
The Councils own resources are tied up in other projects including the Lincoln Court redevelopment (see below).
A report to a meeting next week says that the greatest demand for older people is for independent living one bedroomed flats and bungalows. Some of these are already schedule to be built at Lowfields but it seems that more may now be provided on the reserved care home site.
Such a decision would be in line with the plans announced in 2010 but it is unlikely to impress those who have been affected by the indecision of the last 10 years. .
“The planning approval for the Lowfield Green development includes outline approval for an 80-bed care home. It had originally been envisioned that a care home developer would be procured to build on the site, with the Council buying 25 dementia and Nursing care beds back at the Council’s Actual Cost of Care rates.
A procurement exercise to deliver this failed to attract any compliant bids.
At a similar time, Officers were completing research with
our older residents about their accommodation preferences.
This research highlights residents desire to live independently with care and support available where needed. Officers have since been working to establish how best to develop Older Persons’ Accommodation on the site, which will support those with care needs and also complement the surrounding high-quality mixed tenure accommodation.
A report is expected to be presented to the executive in spring 2020”.
Care home site
The change of approach is the latest in a series of reverses which have affected the controversial development. Residents strongly opposed building on the sports pitch at the site.
The Council responded by offering inducements including a local Police station and health centre. Neither materialised.
Plans for a “communal” housing development are also in delay.
Work on building houses on the sports pitch section of the site are expected to start in January, although its is now thought that building works, across the whole site, may continue for 5 years or longer.
We revealed yesterday that the Council is also set to abandon its plans to build a new care home on the Oakhaven site.
The planning application states, “The proposed replacement plant is to facilitate ongoing sustainability initiatives within the Co-op Group providing smaller, quieter, and more efficient plant across local convenience stores. The shop front redecoration work is to facilitate ongoing sustainability initiatives within the Co-op group providing maintenance, upkeep and branding requirements across the local stores.
The new replacement plant will have minimal visual impact on site as it is to be installed within the existing fenced compound at the existing location to the rear service yard. The shop front redecoration will improve the visual impact on site providing freshness to the existing deteriorating and discolouring paintwork to the façade, window and door frames”.
Plans for improvements to Coop on Beagle Ridge Drive
NB. Condition 34 of planning permission ref 17/02428/FULM reads
“34 Prior to the commencement of the development hereby authorised above foundation level a scheme for the provision of affordable housing units within the development shall be submitted to and approved in writing by the Local Planning Authority.
The development shall thenceforth be undertaken in strict accordance with the details thereby approved prior to the first residential unit being occupied”.
Strangely the papers published for this specific application on the Councils planning web site do not include a listing of the affordable housing units or their distribution on the site, although these details are available elsewhere.
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Lincoln Court Ascot Way York YO24 4RA
Variation of condition 2 of permitted application 19/00083/FULM to provide additional windows and alter fire exit arrangements within the north eastern elevation and stairwell and external air conditioning unit at first floor level on eastern elevation.
Fly tipping near the clothes banks at the Acomb Wood Drive shopping area has now been removed. The Council acted promptly to address the issue following our report last week. There is space in the banks for more clothes now.
A reporton highway maintenance in the City reveals that the value of the current back log of maintenance is approximately one hundred and twelve million (£112 million) based on the current condition and cost of repairs.
The figure confirms what many residents had feared. The
condition of York’s roads and footpaths is continuing to decline
A separate annex reveals that, in most parts of the City, between 3% and 10% of carriageways are rated as “structurally impaired”. These are “very poor”, the lowest condition rating.
The percentage of roads classified as “very poor” hasincreased in every wardin the City during the last 3 years.
The figures also confirm that the City’s roads have not recovered from the draconian maintenance cuts imposed by the then Labour administration in 2012.
More recently the new LibDem/Green led Council has substantially increased the resources allocated to highway maintenance.
The figure also includes a delegated budget to be determined at ward level. There is little evidence that this money has so far been invested*.
The report says that from 1st April 2019 until 26th November
2019, the council has completed “16,646.3 m² of pothole repairs, this equates to
520 m² per week, this is 29.71 m² per day, per gang”.
This can be compared with the same period in 2018 when the
council completed “7,586.4 m² of pothole repairs, this equates to 237 m² per
week, with training etc. that was 18.9 m² per gang, per day”
Some of the parties vying for votes at the General Election are promising to fill in all potholes. Government funding has been consistently low in recent years.
We doubt that central government appreciates the scale of the backlog in maintenance work which currently exists
*Each ward also has a share of a £500,000 fund earmarked for improvements for “cyclists and pedestrians”. So far suggestions from residents for the use of this fund – for example to reduce ponding problems on routes across amenity areas – have produced little positive response from officials
“Yorspace” – the organisation trying to build “communal homes” on the Lowfields site – have announced that they still haven’t achieved their fund raising target.
Doubtful if anyone thinks this is “great news”
For the second time in 6 months, they are extending the crowd funding deadline – this time to the end of January 2020.
This will add to the overall development timetable for the whole site.
There are concerns that the (minimal) play and open space provisions on the development will not be available when new residents move in.
The main Council development is not now expected to start on site until the new year.
The playground is scheduled to be used as a building compound by Yorspace – shades of the situation a few hundred metres away where the Kingsway all weather pitch has become a builder compound.
There are other similarities with Lowfields as at both sites sports facilities have been lost without adequate replacements being provided.
