One of the reports least likely to be subject to detailed scrutiny, as the York Council prepares its budget for next year, is the upward trend in interest charge commitments
By 2022, the amount borrowed by the Council is set to escalate to over £178 million a year. Total debt will reach over £1/2 billion the following year.
This is by far the largest liability the Council has had since it became a unitary authority over 20 years ago.
With interest rates on borrowing by Councils now standing at around 3.5%, it means that, within the next 5 years, the proportion of the Council Tax collected in the City, and used to service debt charges, will increase for 12% this year to 23%. That figure assumes that there will be no increase in interest rates.
In practice the trend means that there will be less money available to spend on street level public services.
So, should we be worried?
At one level, no.
The forecast expenditure, although much closer to the legal borrowing limit, will still be within the ceiling in 2024.
But there is more to it than that.
It is not just principal and interest repayments which erode the flexibility available on the Councils revenue account. New services often bring additional running costs. The Council has forecast zero net expenditure on some high risk investments (e.g. the commercial office space at the Community Stadium, the “business club” being set up at the Guildhall and the Castle Mills development). If it got any of these decision wrong, then taxpayers face a big hit.
What is the additional investment big spent on.
A list of new items being considered tomorrow (Thursday) can be found by clicking here. There are dozens of other items which have already been agreed.
So, is that the extent of the risk?
Unfortunately no. There are several investments that the Council wants to make but for which it has not yet made full financial provision. By far the largest is the York Central project. This could add tens of millions to the programme depending on what financial backing central government decides to offer.
The dualling of the northern by pass is also still not fully funded. Such plans as have been published omit, for example, flyovers at key junctions and across the river. Both could add tens of millions to the costs.
Could we make savings?
29 Castlegate – £1/4 million repair bill
Certainly. The Council has taken on the risk at several developments which the private sector considers to be nonviable. This started when the Council underwrote the office development at Monks Cross, a similar logic was applied to the £20 million Guildhall scheme and most recently we saw the £44 million Castle Piccadilly project brought “in house”. A similar decision was taken on the housing development at Lowfields.
This year £270,000 will be spent on repairing and remodelling 29 Castlegate – an obvious project on which to seek a commercial partner.
Successive generations will end up paying the additional annual £2.8 million interest charges on this year’s new project list unless a more prudent approach is adopted by Councillors.
Budget plans for next year published as residents say highways maintenance is top priority for them
York residents will have a month to comment on the York Councils budget plans for the next financial year.
Plans for some of the key expenditure areas were published over the weekend.
Council Tax will increase by 3.99% with 2% of the increase being earmarked for social care services. The latter will get a £4.5 million boost.
The resultsof the Councils consultation on budget options are also published. Only 691 residents responded. Their top expenditure priority was, unsurprisingly, road and path repairs.
The Council plans to make £4 million in savings although many of these are, largely opaque, financial management tweaks.
Council staff will get a 2% pay increase.
£11 million will be invested in services as part of the Council budget plans.
As much as £1 million will be invested in a new waste and street environment services. This is in addition to capital investment of £6 million on new refuse collection vehicles.
Capital investment of over £12 million will support, repair and improve the highways network. This includes £275,000 for the creation of a reactive pothole repair team,
A long term investment of £3 million in planting more trees is proposed as part of the “northern forest”
Borrowing for house building results in a £1.5 million bill for interest charges on money already borrowed although £7 million is also allocated for modernisation works to the Council housing stock
Savings include centralising communications budgets, fee increases and “making best use of Council assets”.
Growthincludes £141,000 extra for Councillors pay and £80,000 for an “organisational development programme to ensure delivery of key Council priorities”
As well as the welcome commitment to invest more in highways maintenance there are some, surprises in the capital programme . There is £100,000 for a trial of robotics monitoring of social care clients. It will utilise AI. £230,000 is earmarked to replace rising bollards on Bishophill, while a whopping £6.6 million will go on new refuse collection vehicles. This, in effect, confirms that the reason for the multiple vehicle failures last year was poor replacement programming (3 of the new vehicles will be electric powered).
29 Castlegate
More is to be spent maintaining and extending the electric car recharging network. £270,000 is to be spent renovating 29 Castlegate which has been empty for several years. The report says “The condition of the building both internally and externally is deteriorating whilst unoccupied” (Quelle Surprise!)
Theatre Royal
The York Theatre Royal will get another £500,000 to spend on heating, lighting and access improvements. (NB. The Theatre received a £770,000 grant 3 years agoto complete refurbishment work & was supposed to be self-supporting by now).
Installing “hostile vehicle” prevention barriers in the City centre will cost £1.6 million.
Savings include reducing child placement costs & less for community centre maintenance.
Growth items include an extra £250,000 for “safer communities” and £50,000 to create a Mental Health early intervention fund.
Environment and Climate change
Savings: Increases in fees and parking charges including evening charges, Minister badges and an “additional diesel duty” in 2021.
Growth items extra litter /poop scoop bins, better tree maintenance (halleluiah!), “ review of waste collection, including plastics and food waste” and including adding two extra green waste collections each March from 2021 onwards, additional staffing on waste rounds, improved city centre cleaning, effective weed control (praise the Lord!), another study into re/opening Haxby railway station (the fourth in the last 2 decades) and additional Taxi Licensing enforcement .
It was to be a good Spring mainly due to the efforts of volunteers across the community.
Volunteers clear up litter as part of the national Keep Britain Tidy spring campaignAcomb Wood
Volunteer efforts also helped to conserve key environmental sites like local woodland.
Vandalised fencing
Crime levels rose with anti social behaviour once again the biggest source of complaint in sub urban areas.
Scarborough footbridge
Work progressed on a £4 million cycle/pedestrian footbridge linking the railway station to Bootham. Its opening later in the year was to highlight the fact that the City still had a long way to go before it had a comprehensive, and safe, cycle route network.
Lendal Bridge
Another bridge over the Ouse attracted comment. Corrosion on Lendal Bridge served to emphasis the on going cost of maintaining the transport infrastructure in the City
Potholes on carriageways
By far the worst aspect of the transport system was the condition of roads and paths. Potholes became more pronounced in many streets. The maintenance budget was to be increased later in the year but by then frost had already taken its toll
Full recycling containers
There was little change in the recycling rate in York. There was no lack of enthusiasm from residents who regularly filled recycling banks to the point where some overflowed.
Goal posts on Westfield Park
Some simple tasks seemed to confuse the York Council. A request for the goals posts on a local park to be repainted has been outstanding now for 2 years.
Scarborough Bridge
Another area of poor performance earlier in the year was the removal of graffiti. Following sustained criticism from residents, the Council was to completely change its graffiti removal service later in the year. Early results have been encouraging although there have been no recent prosecutions for graffiti (criminal damage).
Balfour Street trees
A self seeded tree in Balfour Street had grown to the point where it was engulfing the adjacent railings and damaging the public footpath. This represented a safety hazard. It would be two years after the problem was first reported before the tree was felled. The felling provided space for two replacement trees to be planted.
Changes made to redevelopment plans for Bowling Green siteAcomb Bowling ClubSite compound
The Council granted planning permission for the (privately owned) Acomb Bowling Club to be demolished and replaced with housing. The owners were required to make a Section 106 contribution towards replacement facilities but this money found its way into a club located in the Holgate area.
Meanwhile, without any consultation with residents, Council officials agreed that land earmarked for a library extension could be used as a site compound and spoil heap. This caused considerable annoyance to some neighbours.
The Council published details of the number of Council homes that were affected by “standing water” . The number had changed little over the years.
On a happier note, the highly successful, Knights Rugby community team organised community events during the Easter holidays.
With the local elections on the horizon the Council revealed the number of issues that had been recorded by Councillors during the previous 4 years. Mostly those who raised the most issues were the Councillors who got re-elected in May.
Labour, LibDem and Green Council candidates. Some Tories weren’t on speaking terms.
There was big choice of candidates in the local elections.
The election manifestos were more significant for what they didn’t say rather than what was proposed. The slow progress on the Community Stadium was air brushed from history, as was the escalating costs of repairing the Guildhall.
In the end, the results showed major gains for the, now 21 strong, LibDem Group who subsequently formed a partnership with the Greens to run the Council.
The Tories fell to their second worst election result ever while Labour made only modest gains.
A few weeks later the LibDems topped the poll in the Euro elections in the City beating off a challenge from the BREXIT party. It was to be a different picture though later in the year when views polarised during an unexpected General Election campaign.
Euro election results June 2019Castlegate
The Council was criticised for the large number of commercial properties which it owned and which had been left empty. These included former elderly persons homes like Oakhaven & Willow House together with offices like those on Castlegate. The properties were costing taxpayers several hundreds of thousands of pounds each year in lost rent income and maintenance costs.
Camera Van
The Police and Crime Commissioner was criticised for an over reliance on income from speed camera vans. The 6 vans concentrated on trunk roads apparently because that was where the greatest number of offenders could be caught and fined. Critics said that accident and average speed trends on monitored roads should be published. This would allow the the success of the initiative to be judged
Woodthorpe Post Office Closure
It wasn’t just the central Post Office that was under threat. The Woodthorpe sub Post Office closed suddenly.
Minster precinct
A new neighbourhood plan covering the area around the Minster was published. It generally received a positive response.
Hollyrood DriveFront StreetA59 entrance to the City
By late May it had become clear that something was seriously amiss with street public service standards. Hedges and trees were obstructing paths. Weeds scared key entrances to the City. It would later become clear that the weed killing programme had simply not taken place on many roads. There would be some improvements towards the end of the year but several issues were never fully resolved.
Work started on demolishing Windsor HouseYork staged its first County Cricket match for over 100 years…..and the Community Stadium pitch started to grow.
It became clear that the new York Community Stadium would not be completed by the final, final deadline on June. A later Autumn opening date was also to pass with key Rugby matches having to be rescheduled to the Bootham Crescent ground.
Council report.
There were also ongoing concerns about the viability of some of the facilities to be provided as part of the stadium deal. It seemed that the Council were now underwriting more of the risk on the commercial side of the development
Meanwhile, the cost of providing new football pitches for a Bishopthorpe based football team was revealed to be nearly £1.5 million
The cost included a high specification clubhouse.
Most of the funding was to come from taxpayers.
What annoyed some residents were claims by officials that the facility was a replacement for the playing fields being built on at Lowfields. It was pointed out that the new site (near the York College) was some 3 miles from Lowfields and lacked a direct public transport link.
A woman in York has pleaded guilty to misusing a relative’s disabled badge to illegally park in York city centre.
Lisa Parker (aged 32 of Campleshon Road, York) was found to have used the Blue Badge to park on Castlegate on 14 June 2019. The case was referred to Veritau, the council’s fraud investigation team, after a member of the parking team spotted the van parked on double yellow lines and displaying the badge.
Blue Badges make it easier for people to travel and maintain independence, however can be open to abuse. Blue Badges allow people to park in certain locations including double yellow lines and disabled spaces, however these benefits are only intended for the badge holder, or someone who is transporting them.
The badge holder must be either in the vehicle when it is parked, or in the vehicle when it leaves the location it was parked in. If a person drops the badge holder off and then goes to park elsewhere, the badge cannot be used, as the badge holder is no longer with them.
If someone is picking up a badge holder, then they can only use the badge to park in the place where they are picking them up. A Blue Badge cannot be used without the badge holder, even if errands are being run for them.
On 14 June 2019, a City of York Council parking officer saw a Blue Badge displayed in the window of a van parked on Castlegate. After identifying the badge number, investigators found that the same badge was subject to an investigation in 2017, with the same vehicle parked in the same place. The vehicle belonged to Ms Parker, who used the same relative’s Blue Badge to park there without the badge holder, for which she had already received a warning from the council.
Ms Parker was invited to an interview under caution on 13 August 2019 but refused to attend. The previous misuse of the badge in 2017 was a factor in City of York Council deciding to seek prosecution in this case.
Ms Parker pleaded guilty by post and was sentenced in York Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday 17 December 2019. She received a fine and was ordered to pay court costs and victim surcharge, totalling £499.
Councillor Denise Craghill, Executive Member for Housing and Safer Neighbourhoods, said: “This case shows that the council takes Blue Badge misuse seriously and is committed to taking action to prevent misuse of the Blue Bade system, which supports drivers and passengers with disabilities.
“In this instance, the resident had parked their car illegally on double yellow lines in the city centre and displayed a badge to avoid paying a fine, despite previously receiving a warning for the same thing. This could have prevented someone with disabilities and a genuine need for the Blue Badge parking from using it.”
Any members of the public with information on fraudulent activity are encouraged to phone the anonymous fraud hotline on 0800 9179 247, or emailcounter.fraud@veritau.co.uk.
The council has submitted its plans to create a new public park at the rear of the Castle Museum, a new pedestrian and cycle bridge over the Foss, commercial spaces for local independent traders, and 106 new apartments, including new council housing.
This is another major milestone in the delivery of the regeneration of the Castle Gateway. As well as bringing life to the old Castle Mills car park site and a place for growing York businesses on Piccadilly, the residential development would fund the construction of a new multi-storey car park on St George’s Field.
This parking would then allow Castle car park to close and be replaced by additional public space.
The Castle Mills plans would see two residential apartment blocks built, with the entire southern block of 20 apartments being new council housing. The northern block will include 86 flats ranging in size from 1 bed apartments to 2 bed duplexes. The ground floor of both apartment blocks will feature commercial spaces.
The council are taking a lead on environmental sustainability, with homes benefiting from renewable energy sources and the proposals providing a car free development with high level of cycle parking.
The proposals also include a new pedestrian and cycle bridge over the river Foss linking up with the new pedestrian/cycle crossing over the inner ring and connecting up wider cycle routes to create safer and sustainable journeys in to and through the city centre.
The bridge will also link across to the area at the rear of the Castle Museum. This space, which is currently part of the museum grounds, will be opened to the public as a new riverside park, creating a place to relax in the shadow of the Castle Walls.
The proposals have been shaped and developed with stakeholders, partners and residents through the innovative My Castle Gateway public engagement project. The design will create new landmark riverside buildings for Piccadilly whilst generating the financial return to help pay for the regeneration proposals for the Castle Gateway.
The main features of the masterplan are:
replacing Castle Car Park with a multi-storey car park and visitor arrival point on St George’s Field
Castle Car Park and the Eye of York to become a new public space, hosting events throughout the year
a new residential and leisure building visually enhancing and covering the servicing yard at the rear of the Coppergate Centre
a new riverside walk by the Foss from the south of the city and a pedestrian/cycle bridge connecting with Piccadilly
bringing life to the Foss Basin, including a new apartment development
new commercial and residential developments on the sites of Castle Mills Car Park and 17-21 Piccadilly
significant improvements to public spaces and streets throughout the area
After the planning application has been validated by the council’s planning team in the coming days, it will be available to view at www.york.gov.uk/planning under reference number 19/02415/FUL
The York Councils decision to spend over £2 million adding
further properties to its investment portfolio has produced a backlash.
Critics have pointed to the ongoing delays in bring empty properties into use. Six months ago, a Freedom of information (FOI) request revealed a long list of under-used Council buildings. These included Oakhaven, Ashbank, Willow House, the Guildhall and, of course, 29 Castlegate.
The latter is one of the prime properties in the City centre and was valued at £575,000 in 2016. Since then there have been further increases in property prices in the City.
A further FOI tried to discover what progress has been made in selling the property following a decision by the York Civic Trust to pull out of a purchase deal 12 months ago. The FOI has been rejected (see right) on the grounds that there are ongoing commercial discussions taking place. It fails to reveal who is talking to whom about the empty property. No attempt has been made to let the property for temporary use in the busy Christmas period (it includes a frontage onto the Coppergate shopping centre).
Council response to FOI request
At last week’s Executive meeting, Councillors were challenged
over their stewardship of the Council’s property estate.
They responded by claiming that the portfolio was “worth £335m
and produced an income of £5.8m a year”.
This claim has prompted a further FOI request. A local resident now wants to see a list of all Council owned commercial properties, their value and the net income that each produces.
This is the kind of information that should be routinely provided for the Councils “scrutiny” committee. A six monthly review of investment returns is the least that taxpayers would expect to be published for public review.
Sadly, this no longer happens at the York Council.
Willow House
The delays in disposing of empty property is now a major issue for the authority. It some cases there may be good reasons for the delays but, if so, then there must be more transparency about the process*.
If the Council cannot effectively manage its estate, then there are companies in the City who would be delighted to help.
*The Council has agreed to receive a staffing report on a 6-monthly basis. The reports will cover FTE numbers, Equality Data, Absence and Well Being, Starters and Leavers, reasons for leaving (i.e. retirement, redundancy, dismissal, settlement agreement) and Agency staff numbers.
19% of Council Tax income will go on servicing interest and
repayment charges.
Under current plans, the debts of the York Council are set to increase from £293 million to £384 million by 2023.
The high repayment requirement means that less will be available to spend on basic public services in the City.
That represents a burden of £539 for every York resident.
Although the figures are within the legal limit placed on Council
borrowing, several of the projects being funded have risks which could increase
net expenditure.
The figures are included in a report
to a meeting taking place next week.
Separately, the Council is being recommended to find £2.85
million to fund the purchase of an unnamed City Centre property. This is being
described as a “Strategic Commercial Property Acquisition”.
While it is true to say that, in the long term, investments
in City Centre land and buildings by the Council has in the past proved to be of
positive value for taxpayers, the Councils recent
record on asset management has left much to be desired.
The Willow House former elderly persons home building has been empty for several years while the high profile property at 29 Castlegate is in a similar position.
The Councils executive Councillors stubbornly refuse to consider, in public, asset management issues of this sort.
The latest footfall figures for York City centre makes grim reading. The run up to Christmas is usually the busiest time of the year for retailers. With footfall continuing to decline, hopes now rest on the Christmas market stimulating interest.
The York Council is today discussing a reportwhich considers the progress that has been made in implementing recommendations from a review of the “economic health of the City centre”.
Eight recommendations were agreed by the responsible executive Councillor at the beginning of the year. They mostly concern relationships with trade organisations together with the promise that a long-term strategy would be consulted on. The consultation has been dubbed “MyCityCentre”. If it is anything like the Councils MyCastleGatewayproject, then recovery timescales will be measured in decades rather than years.
A bid to the governments “Future High Streets Fund” has
already been turned down.
The only tangible change for customers was the introduction of a “York Gift Card” loyalty scheme. This was launched by the York BID last month. Unfortunately it competes with a plethora of other loyalty cards – including those run by the York Museums Trust, York Libraries and the Theatre Royal – as well as the, better established, York Pass, for the attention of visitors.
Some joined up thinking wouldn’t go amiss.
The report says that evening park and ride service times have
now been made permanent.
Meanwhile the number of shops closing in the City centre is increasing. Debenhams, Bonmarche, French Connection, LK Bennett, Crabtree & Evelyn, Gap, Dorothy Perkins and Burton have, or will shortly, close. They join dozens of others including iconic York brands like Scotts, Hunter and Smallpage, House and Son, Sarah Coggles, Russell’s and Mulberry Hall; all lost during the last decade.
Against that background of collateral damage, it is surprising that the Council could only come up with eight palliatives. In fairness, though, it can do little about the biggest influence – internet shopping.
The shop closure trend is not even mentioned in the Council report.
It is ironic that some politicians are jumping on a bandwagon promoted by access difficulties for some market traders over the Christmas period. They will be unable to close their stalls. remove goods and exit the city before 5:00pm.
Their landlords, the “Make it York” QUANGO, claim that vehicles cannot safely leave the market area before 8:00pm.
Some might think, in any event, that the high footfall brought by the Christmas Market would be something to be exploited. Empty stalls are a “turn off” for customers.
Nevertheless “Make it York” has acquired a poor reputation for consultation and flexibility during its relatively short lifespan.
Looks like there will be more delays on the Lowfield project as the communal housing section of the scheme has failed to attract sufficient investors.
It could mean the project will take even longer to complete.
It is not clear whether the Council and Yorspace have exchanged contracts for the sale (at a discount value) of the land in question.
The Councils track record on asset use is being increasingly criticised on social media with a deals for the sale of Willow House and29 Castlegate (both empty for over 3 years) still not concluded
TheOakhavenbuilding in Acomb is also still unused.
Given the claims made by Council leaders about addressing housing need urgently, the dithering on these projects is difficult to justify.
The Council is providing little useful update information on their Lowfields overall development timetable.
. Westfield Ward Councillors have been asked to “call in” the proposal which would see the perimeter railings removed. The local Lowfields Action Group say they have had no response to their enquiries about the plan.
Plans for the new St George’s Field multi-storey car park and coach park have been submitted and are available for viewing and comments as part of the next steps in the Castle Gateway project.
The submission of the planning application for St George’s Field is a major milestone in the delivery of the regeneration of the Castle Gateway. Once complete, the new car park will allow for the permanent closure of Castle Car Park, to create an expanse of new high quality public space for the city.
The relocation of the car parking would also remove a significant number of car journeys from inside the inner ring road, helping residents and visitors get around more sustainably in this part of city.
The planning application has been developed through a range of in depth public engagement events that took place throughout the spring and summer to explore the design options for the multi-storey car park and public spaces..
The new, modern four-storey car park would provide 372 large car parking spaces over 5 levels, with the fifth level of parking situated on the roof. 15 % of the parking spaces will be for electric vehicle charging with the ability to increase these as demand grows.
City of York Council have worked closely with the Environment Agency and Historic England, to ensure the proposed plans have minimal impact on the functioning floodplain and surrounding heritage, creating high quality architectural design. Vehicle and pedestrian access at first floor level of the car park means it would continue to be in use even when the River Ouse is in flood.
After the planning application has been validated by the council’s planning team in the coming days, it will be available to view at www.york.gov.uk/planning under reference number 19/02063/FULM
The new car park would be funded through a new residential development on the site of the now demolished Castle Mills Car Park. As part of the plans a new public bridge spanning the River Foss would connect Piccadilly and the rear of the Castle Museum, opening up a planned cycle and pedestrian route along the river into town.
The planning application for the residential development on the site of the Castle Mills building, providing new riverside apartments for sale, council housing and a pedestrian/cycle bridge across the Foss can be expected later in October.
Councillor Nigel Ayre, executive member for finance and performance, said:
“The planning application for St George’s Field Car Park marks a key stage in the Castle Gateway regeneration. The Castle Gateway area offers a great opportunity to put family-friendly public spaces, better transport links and places for York businesses at the heart of the city.
“The design of St George’s Field car park is built on extensive public engagement, bringing together the diverse range of opinions on an important part of our city. The application is now open for comments, so please take a look and participate in this important process.”
The proposed building includes living walls, a feature external staircase, and solar panels. New government regulations that have been introduced since the plans were last shared with the public have restricted the use of timber cladding on car parks, so the plans propose an alternative natural and sustainable material to achieve the same effect alongside the green ‘living’ wall.
This is by far the largest liability the Council has had since it became a unitary authority over 20 years ago.
Growth
