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Big investment in York Public Services

Council leadership set to prioritise road repairs, play facilities, housing, energy efficiency and Social Care.

The new Council leadership has announced changes to the budget that it inherited. As expected, extra investment in improvements to street level public services are planned.

There will be extra investment in

More to be spent on road repairs
  • Removing graffiti
  • Additional Litter bins
  • Tree management
  • Crime reduction
  • Waste collection
  • Street environment (cleaning and community projects)
  • Buses
  • Electric vehicle charging point maintenance.

The biggest investment will be £1 million spent on road repairs and a further £1 million on cycling/walking improvements

There will be a £250,000 boost for children’s play facilities.

The Council will invest £1 million in speeding up housing modernisation and a further £1 million on energy efficiency improvements

£22,000 is being taken for the reserves to improve children’s and adult social care standards.

Several of the proposals are less than transparent. We are told, for example, that the Council will “Re-purpose funding from the Leeds City Region Business Rates Pilot to strengthen our approach to inclusive growth, including child poverty, greening the high street and promote lifelong learning”

We think that there is unlikely to be rioting in the streets as a result of the Councils decision to discontinue the “digital immersive model” marketing project. There may be public unrest if the Council doesn’t publish its reports in plain English in future.

Also, the Council will fund “connections with communities most impacted by EU exit to better understand their needs, and to take forward the community hubs work initiated”

Four schemes are intended to be self-funding. They relate to foster care, Special Education Needs and Disability pupils, Public Health and mental health.

The proposals will be welcomed by many in the City. It will, however, take more than £1 million to get the City’s roads back into good order. 

£4.25 million of the plan is capital investment, meaning higher debt charges in the future (and less to spend in the revenue budget).

The plans are likely to be criticised for failing to clearly identify the objectives of some of the changes with no detail given of how the success of the projects will be measured.

No KPIs are listed and there is no clear vision of how the City will look in 4 years’ time.

Residents may feel that prompt attention to reducing the costs of some inherited major projects is necessary, especially if demands on taxpayers in future years are to remain under control.

It really shouldn’t cost £35,000 to “ launch a public Citizen’s Assembly on how the Council can best work in an open way”

The Council must become a “can do” rather than a “can talk” organisation.

Still it’s a start, and a better one than was managed by the last two Council administrations.

The proposal will be discussed at a meeting taking place on 17th July

A full list of budget proposals can be read by clicking here

Full list of budget changes
Budget changes list continued

Sort out sub urban bus shelters plea

Bus passengers in York are calling on the Council to review its bus shelter policies for suburban areas.

A lot of money has been spent on the bus stops on the York City centre in recent years. Hundreds of thousands more will be spent as the area outside the station is remodelled.

but there has been little progress made in providing “next bus due” real time information on most of the network. Even busy routes with inter -urban services like Tadcaster Road lack passenger information (and shelter)

Mobile device systems have been developed but they are not user friendly and often revert to providing just when the timetabled service should arrive.

In Leeds, bus arrival time signs are integrated into shelters.

Some bus shelters are redundant following changes to bus routes which took place several years ago. The shelter below on Tudor Road is an example. The local number 4 service only serves the opposite side of the road on its clockwise route round Acomb. Now all the shelter does is attract anti social behaviour

As a consequence there is a large amount of litter on the near by verge while ponding on the adjacent footpath has never been properly addressed.

Litter next to Tudor Road bus shelter

It is an issue that the various public transport pressure groups in the City have failed to get to grips with.

York to boast one of the biggest fleets of double deck electric buses outside of London

York will be home to one of the biggest fleets of double deck electric buses thanks to investment by First York and funding secured by City of York Council from Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV)

Today (25 March), City of York Council, First York and bus manufacturer Optare announced that 21 new double deck electric vehicles will arrive in York in October 2019. The zero-emission and fully electric buses each have the capacity to carry 99 passengers and have a range of over 150 miles from one overnight charge, which means that they don’t need to be recharged during the day. Alongside this, First York is also upgrading its charging infrastructure, and the state-of-the-art vehicles will feature audio visual next stop technology, USB charging points and will carry new-look Park & Ride branding.

York Park & Ride, an operating partnership between City of York Council and First York, supports over four million journeys every year and is one of the UK’s most successful Park & Ride services. 12 electric single deck Optare buses have been operating on two out of the six Park & Ride sites for the last five years; helping to improve air quality and reduce congestion in the city. Individual car use and the congestion caused is a big contributor to air pollution in York, but each bus can take up to 75 cars off the congested streets in York.

Marc Bichtemann, Managing Director of First York, said: “We’re proud to be the operator of one of the biggest fleets of double deck electric buses outside of London, as we continue to work with City of York Council to improve air quality in York.

“Today’s announcement showcases the benefits of partnership working in practice and we remain committed to investing in our bus services in York, as we share the same vision. By working together, local authorities and bus operators can make a real impact on congestion and air quality, provide better services for our customers, support local economies more effectively and, ultimately, help to increase passenger numbers.

“At First York, we are striving to make things better for the customer by making bus travel simple, speeding up bus boarding times, reducing journey times, using data to make better operational decisions and developing a customer relationship as opposed to a transactional one.”

For further information, visit www.itravelyork.info/park-and-ride.

Business Rates reduction scheme gets nod

Council reveals who pays the most and least in rates

Tesco has largest rates bill in York

The Government scheme to reduce business rates by 33% for medium sized retailers has been approved. New bills are expected to be sent out shortly.

The decision comes as the Council lifts the veil on business rates (NNDR) in York. A report to a meeting next week says that 2000 local businesses are entirely exempt from paying rates. (Businesses with a rateable value of less than £12,000 are exempt from paying rates).

The bottom 50% of businesses pay an average of less than £1000 per annum.

The biggest bill is paid by Tesco which alone has a bill in York of over £3 million.

7 of the top 10 charges are for superstores, including those at Vangarde.

The top 3 non-retail rates bills are for Nestle (£1.4m), Defra (£930k) and CYC’s West Offices (£730k).

Hotels are large contributors, The Grand having a net charge of £680k, The Principal paying £547k and the StayCity Aparthotel on Paragon Street contributing £343k.

Within the city centre, the highest charges are paid by Marks and Spencer for their Parliament Street store (£527k), Primark (£366k) and Boots (£355k).

The highest rateable value of £7m is for the University of York, although the University is a charity and receives 80% relief on its liability.

Coney Street and Parliament Street still have the highest rateable values. Click here to see a list of the values in each City Centre street.

The York Council is increasingly dependant on business rate income to fund public services.

The report reveals that, although rates are payable on empty properties (after 3 months), the BHS store on Coney Street has been exempted from the charge by the Valuation Office. There are other exemptions mainly for charities and amateur sports clubs.

Business rate levels are set by central government. Income is shared between the local authority and central government.

28% of the York Council’s budget is now funded from business rates .

The Council is expected to submit an expression of interest in the new “Future High Street Fund” at a meeting being held on 22nd March.

NB. The Council refused recently to publish a complete list of long term business rate debtors.

Over 1000 business in York likely to get a 33% reduction in business rates

Retail businesses qualifying for rates relief

The Council has announced how it proposes to implement the governments rates reduction scheme for retailers.

In order to help the beleaguered High Street, retailers will get a 1/3 reduction in business rates.

Small businesses with Rateable Values of under £12,000 don’t pay business rates anyway. Now those with Rateable Values of up to £51,000 will get more help.

The purpose of this new discount is to support the ‘high street’ which has been affected by changes in consumer spending preferences such as online shopping. The relief is temporary for two years from April 2019.

A report to a meeting next week says, “The purpose of this new discount is to support the ‘high street’ which has been affected by changes in consumer spending preferences such as online shopping. The relief is temporary for two years from April 2019”.

There are some notable exclusions from the scheme. These include professional services, cinemas, theatres, museums, night clubs and music venues.

Some eyebrows will be raised that restaurants and bars operating in the profitable hospitality economy in the City centre may qualify for discounts.

The Council will implement an “appeals” process for any businesses that feel aggrieved with their categorisation.

The scheme does little to address the underlying problem of low-cost on-line retailers who many think provide unfair competition.

Over £576,000 owed in rates by York businesses

So which firms owe the York Council money?

It has taken long time, but we now know which companies haven’t paid their NNDR (business rates) in York during the last 3 years.

In response to a Freedom of Information request, the Council has listed 138 traders who have arrears of over £100.

Some have gone into administration while others have decided to repay debts gradually. In some cases, the bailiffs are being sent in

…and it must be said that no business is guaranteed to be a success. Times change, tastes vary and sometimes business do go under. Propriators can be taken ill, some even die.

That is the way life works so there will always be some bad debt.

….. but the total outstanding debt is now over £576,803 and other taxpayers must make up that deficit if public services are to be maintained.

So it is also important that lists of long term debtors are made public.

This allows residents to provide information on the whereabouts of business people and taxpayers who may have absconded. For many years the York Council did this routinely with some useful leads providing a way for money to be reclaimed from those who were seeking to evade their responsibilities.

In some cases, unscrupulous individuals were found to have amassed large arrears before going into administration and then setting up a new company with a similar name and providing much the same service. Often, they operated out of the same premises.

Now a new barrier to transparency has emerged.

The Council is refusing to divulge the names of companies where this may lead to an individual being identified. In some cases, these may be single traders operating under their own name.

The Council says, “some of the business names are names of individual’s and have been withheld as they are exempt under Section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act (2000), as they constitute personal information under the Data Protection Act (1998)”.

Hmm!

The names of some companies have, however, been revealed. This means that the names of their directors can be found simply be searching records at Company’s House (which can now be done “on line”)

The Councils position doesn’t entirely add up.

Debtor information like this was published as recently as 2013 by the Council.

They also take legal action to recover debts (essential before bailiffs can be used) and these preceding are not taken “in camera”. The information is in the public domain.

In this case we think that the public interest outweighs any right to anonymity and we will appeal against the Council’s refusal to provide the names of business owners.

In the meantime, the list of those debtors owing more than £100 is provided here.

No doubt the Councils finance department would appreciate any information about the whereabouts of any who may have absconded.

Customer Charter for York Bus Passengers

 

York’s Quality Bus Partnership is launching a Customer Charter, which sets out the high standard of service that it aims to deliver to customers using bus services across the city.

The charter will be formally launched at the newly-refurbished bus shelter on Rougier Street in the city centre, which re-opened on Tuesday 8 May following the completion of a package of improvements funded by the Department for Transport. As one of the busiest bus stops in the city, Rougier Street is used by around 750,000 passengers per year. The improvements carried out there were the final phase of a programme of work that also saw bus stops at Exhibition Square, Museum Street, the Railway Station and Stonebow refurbished and enhanced. The new and improved bus shelter features two light boxes that can be used to communicate important service information to bus users, as well as sharing the Customer Charter with them.

The charter contains a series of pledges about the quality of the service that the Quality Bus Partnership aims to provide to bus users in York, from making fares easy to understand, timetables clear and ensuring that buses are accessible for everyone to making bus stops more welcoming, offering real time information and putting good public transport at the heart of planned highway work and new property developments.

As part of the drive to make the city’s bus services even more efficient and user-friendly, contactless payments (by credit or debit card) were recently added to the range of cashless ways to pay. Bus passengers in York have been quick to embrace cashless payments, either contactless or by Smartcard, with around 1,800 customers making the switch every week, according to figures provided by First York recently.

Bus stop changes affecting Foxwood from Sunday

Several changes to bus timings take effect from Sunday. For full details click here

The 12 service to/from Foxwood is affected with the terminus stop now on Bellhouse Way. It is hoped that this will reduce  bus parking conflicts near the Foxwood shops. The actual route is unchanged.

12/14 Monks Cross – York – Foxwood Lane

  • Buses retimed 5-10 minutes earlier into York
  • The evening journeys that terminated at Elmfield Avenue now extended to Monks Cross
  • All of the buses from Monks Cross now go via the Monks Cross shops
  • The services that previously terminated at Elmfield Avenue extended to Monks Cross (request of customers and drivers)
  • To prevent congestion at Foxwood Lane shops we’ve changed the last stop to Bellhouse Way (the start of the loop)

York city centre bus stops set to reopen on Monday

On Monday, 5 March, bus services will return to their normal bus stops at Stonebow following relocation during the refurbishment of Stonebow House.

The temporary stops outside Marks and Spencer, and further down Stonebow will close.

The stops will reopen with wider pavements and better lighting, significantly improving the environment for passengers. Seating will also be improved later in the year.

At the same time, three bus stops at Rougier Street, for buses heading in the direction of York Station, will close to allow a new bus shelter to be to be put in place following the refurbishment of Roman House.

The Rougier Street stops will reopen towards the end of April after the new shelter has been completed.  The new shelter will be a substantial improvement with better lighting, improved seating and in-shelter CCTV.

All stops in the city centre have also been fitted with real time information displays, and all stops have received new, easy to read, timetables.

NB. The number 4 bus service returned to its original route past the railway station yesterday.

For more information about traveling in and around York visit www.itravelyork.info

Bus servics 3. 4 and 9 return to Railway Station route

According to the First website there are changes to the diversion put in place to avoid the Lendal Gyratory roadworks

 From Sat 3rd March

Lendal Gyratory

From Saturday 3rd March, there will be revisions to the diversions for the roadworks on Lendal Gyratory.

This is because the roadworks are moving to the Station Avenue/Leeman Road junction and what was planned to be the most disruptive phase of the roadworks has now finished and did not cause as many issues as anticipated.  However, the gyratory will not be able to cope with all services returning to normal.

Services 3, 4 and 9

  • Will revert to normal running

NB. Apparently 3s and 4s are back to their normal route to serve the Station today (Thursday)

Services 59 and 66

  • Remain on current diversions

These diversions will remain in operation until further notice but may change again as we assess the extent of the disruption.