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New community profiles published for York

New statistics, which provide a detailed insight into the characteristics of each Ward in York, have been published by the Council.

The “Ward Profiles” give local details of;

  • the age group of residents
  • Religion
  • Employment groups
  • Housing tenure
  • Benefit claims
  • Unemployment
  • Poverty
  • Health
  • Crime
  • Resident satisfaction with the local area

The profiles for each ward can be accessed by clicking here

Taking the Westfield Ward as an example we can see that:

  • The largest section of the community is aged between 25 and 34
  • 32% are married
  • 94% are white British
  • 59.2% are Christian
  • Most work in the retail/wholesale trade (18%) or in health/social care (15%)
  • 57% own their own home (31.8% with a mortgage)
  • 32% live alone
  • 1155 live on benefits – a significant fall since 2013. There are now only 70 claiming Job Seekers Allowance
  • Technically, Westfield is the most “deprived” ward in York although it is steadily becoming more prosperous
  • 18% of children are obese while 79% of resident regard themselves as being in “good or very good” health
  • Anti-social behaviour is above the York average
  • 83% were satisfied with their local area as a place in which to live.
  • 46% said that they could influence decisions in their area (much higher than for the rest of York)
  • 55% were satisfied with the way that the Council runs things (slightly less than the City average) but an above average number (50%) felt the Council was doing well to improve the quality of street /public spaces

Resident engagement Sept 2016Crime Sept 2016Deprevation Sept 2016

“A boards” to be banned from City centre pavements

A board funny drinkingCity of York Council is set to introduce a new A-Board policy for York’s city centre which, following approval from Executive at a public meeting on Thursday 25 August will start on 1 January 2017 for a year-long trial.

The council’s new policy proposes a four month transition period, from the date approval is granted, to allow plenty of time to notify and put into practice the new regulations from next year.

If approved, the year-long trial will implement a new ‘Prohibition Zone’ banning all A-Boards (and other advertising materials) on the public highway in this zone located within the inner ring road / Business Improvement District boundary.

The only exception will be Micklegate, which will require businesses to apply for a license to the council to place an A-Board on the highway.

All businesses and retailers affected will be sent information on the new policy before this is introduced.

A number of alternatives to using regular A-Boards will be suggested to businesses and retailers located within the zone, including a new city approved board or shared boards (wall/building mounted).

The development of these will be progressed during the transition period and the council hopes to work with partners including the Business Improvement District, the York Retail Forum, Make It York and the York Civic Trust.
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York summit to inspire healthier housing

rural-housingLocal authority and NHS leaders are among those attending City of York Council’s health and housing summit.

The summit aims to identify new ways in which private homes can be made healthier to help people stay in them more safely and for longer.

The Northern Health and Housing Summit: Better Homes, Better Health will be held on 13 June at the University of York in partnership with the Building Research Establishment and Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership (LEP). It’s one of the few events which aims to tackle pressures on health, social care and in the biggest housing tenure the private sector and will share evidence and research findings which can be used to help shape policy and practice locally and nationally.
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Burnholme Health & Wellbeing Campus Plans

Bunholme "hub" layout. click to enlarge

Bunholme “hub” layout. 

Members of City of York Council’s Executive will be asked to approve plans to progress the new Health and Wellbeing Campus at Burnholme at their meeting later this month (19 May).

The plans, which form an element of the Older Person’s Accommodation Programme, include:

  • a nursing and residential care home of at least 82 beds;
  • space for a relocated Explore Library Learning Centre;
  • nursery and out of school care for pre- and primary school age children;
  • meeting and activity spaces for community and voluntary sector groups and communities of interest;
  • space for rent by start-up enterprises and by small third sector organisations;
  • a wide spectrum of both formal and informal indoor sports and active leisure provision;
  • sports pitches and other outdoor activities;
  • accommodation for General Medical (GP) and community-based health services;
  • flexible training and meeting spaces for health service and lifestyle information provision;
  • complementary commercial offering e.g. pharmacy, community cafe etc; and
  • homes to rent and to buy.

Unfortunately no report has been produced updating Councillors on the future of the Lowfields site in Westfield. The site was the original location for improved facilities for older residents.
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Westfield to get jobs project funding from Europe

Volunteers needed for £40,000 community-led project for city’s most vulnerable

US-unemployment-jobs-fair-007City of York Council is looking for volunteers to identify what would most improve people’s lives in five of the city’s less prosperous communities.

This project – 4CommunityGrowthYork – will benefit Bell Farm, Clifton, Navigation and Walmgate, Tang Hall and Westfield and is underway thanks to the council winning an initial £22,000 funding from the European Structural and Investment Funds, which the council has match-funded to £40k.

Once accepted onto this community-led local development project, the volunteers will focus on the needs of the five communities with special emphasis on supporting the more vulnerable into work. The £40k will go towards their training, research and consultations, as well as seeking expert advice and examples of best practice nationally and locally, such as the Tang Hall Big Local project which has similar objectives.

This feedback will help develop ideas on how to support and offer early help to families in need and to jobseekers and local enterprises. This will be looked at alongside existing work including with ward teams and residents’ associations.

4CommunityGrowthYork’s plans will be developed into a formal strategy which will be submitted to the EU by the end of August 2016, in a bid to win a further £1.29 million. This sum will be match-funded through the council, Government and Tang Hall Big Local funding to a total £2.58m, to realise the strategy and so help improve the quality of life of residents in the five communities.

Councillor Keith Aspden, Deputy Leader of City of York Council with responsibility for Economic Development and Community Engagement, said: “Applications to join the project will be especially welcomed from people living or working in the five key communities, and who have experience of both the private and public sectors. You’ll be warmly welcomed to the information sessions we are holding where you can find out much more. This is a significant project which could make a lasting difference to our communities.”

Information sessions for 4CommunityGrowthYork will be held at West Offices, YO1 6GA on:
• Friday 1 April at 12-1pm
• Tuesday 5 April at 4-5pm and at 5-6pm
• Friday 8 April at 12-1pm.

To book a place on the information sessions, or for more detail on the project, please email mora.scaife@york.gov.uk or call 01904 551834.

Communications probe in wake of York floods failures

Twitter 2

How events unfolded on “twitter” click to enlarge

A media release issued by the York Council on the afternoon of 26th December assured residents that “provisions were in place to protect the City” from flooding.

Less than 14 hours later the Foss barrier had failed, 700 homes and businesses had been flooded and telecoms were down.

The Council issued a further media statement late on 27th saying “The north east of the city is protected from flooding by a flood protection scheme, called the Foss Barrier”.

Which rather demonstrates the need for prompt and informed communications when a crisis develops.

As one of our commentators points out,

“We seem to receive at least one severe warning each year without a trickle of water being seen in the street (Huntington Road). I guess that it’s institutional ‘crying wolf’. Neighbours say that if there had been a real local warning – from, say, a tannoy fitted to a police car, then they would have been able to save more possessions. We are all going to have to move out of homes for six months for reconstruction”. 

Cllr Andrew Waller has agreed to take up any communications issues with the appropriate authorities

Coincidentally the Council will debate next week (11th Jan) a study on “E-Democracy”.  The review prompted the so called engagement survey where residents were asked to say how they would prefer to communicat with the Council.  Ironically the failure to publicise the survey led to a derisory level of engagement with it!

The study also failed to report on the speed of response to issues reported using existing “on line” systems. *

However, more intelligent and timely use of digital systems is undoubtedly at least part of the way forward.

Real time updates on flood levels should be possible even now, while many organisations in the business support and voluntary sector (and others) need to take a hard look at how well they have supported their clients over the last week.

Meanwhile the City remains grateful to the relatively  small number of organisations and individuals who, from Monday onwards, organised themselves to meet the emerging gaps in the provision of flood relief services

*It has been confirmed that the much hyped but dysfunctional issue reporting system launched in October is in fact an interim “fix” aimed at replacing a system lost when computer systems were transferred to West Offices 18 months ago.

 The new “all bells and whistles” personal account based system – originally promised for introduction in spring 2015 – is now expected to be available later this year and may be soft tested later this month.

York St John students join forces with North Yorkshire Police to promote a safer Christmas

 

York St John University Business Management students have been working with North Yorkshire Police on the force’s Twitter campaign around Christmas safety.
York St John lecturer Mark Dransfield with his Business Management students who have been working with North Yorkshire Police

As part of their Digital Business Communication module students were looking at strategies to develop effective internal and external operational communications. They explored a range of tools, models and strategies and Tom Stirling, Digital Communications Manager at North Yorkshire Police, came into a student session to look at North Yorkshire Police’s use of social media.

Mark Dransfield, Senior Lecturer in Business Management, said: “One of the unique things about this module is that I engage with several partners in industry in order to give more meaning and a direct relevance to the theories we look at. This year I have worked with Portakabin and North Yorkshire Police (NYP).

“I chose NYP because they have a great social media profile, are very active and have won awards for their social media activities.”

Students were asked to develop a campaign for a tweet chat, a live chat – typically an hour long – held on Twitter. Participants use a hash tag to engage with and follow the conversation and tweet chats are often moderated with moderators asking up to six questions to prompt engagement. (more…)

York meets to co-ordinate response to help Syrian refugees

Refugee leadersRepresentatives from City of York Council’s Executive have met with key partners on Monday to discuss how, as a city, York can best co-ordinate a response to helping Syrian refugees.

The meeting included partners from the voluntary sector, faith sector, public health, housing and universities and discussed how the various groups could work together and offer their experiences and resources towards a co-ordinated response in York.

Offers of support, including temporary accommodation in the private sector, have already been generously put forward to the council in response to the meeting. If anyone would like to provide accommodation, donations or other assistance, information on this can be found at www.york.gov.uk/refugeesupport .

A dedicated email address has also been set-up to channel any offers of support via refugeesupport@york.gov.uk . In addition to this, the council is also working alongside the regional co-ordinating body, Migration Yorkshire.

The call for action follows the Prime Minister’s recent announcement and commitment to bring up to 20,000 refugees to the UK.  

The council is currently awaiting information from government on the detail of the resettlement scheme.

However, yesterday’s meeting has enabled the council and partners to be in the best possible position to respond to any offers of accommodation and ensure other support can be received by appropriate organisations once these details are known.

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Future of York’s Park & Ride service

Park and ride busesA new eight-year contract for York’s Park&Ride service, which attracts over 4.5million passengers annually, will be awarded next year following a procurement exercise which will commence shortly.

Ahead of this procurement process, a report examining the options for the delivery of the service after the end of the current contract in 2017 will be taken to an Executive meeting on 24 September.

To ensure that the most effective solutions for the service are presented to members for consideration, a comprehensive review of the existing operation and potential amendments has been undertaken.

This included a review of Park&Ride operations around the country, surveying the views of the service users, visiting other Park&Ride sites and undertaking pre-procurement engagement with potential suppliers of the service.

During the Executive meeting, members will be asked to consider approving the principles for the service and delivery, which will enable a new eight-year contract to be prepared.

Currently operated on behalf of the council by First York, the current eight-year contact will come to an end in February 2017.

A new contract will commence at the end of the current contract and be awarded in Spring 2016. This is in order to meet with the council’s own financial regulations, ensure best value and transparency in accordance with EU procurement legislation.

Find out more about York’s Park&Ride Service at www.itravelyork.info/buses

Executive will take place on Thursday 24 September at West Offices from 5.30pm and is open to members of the public or is available to watch live online from: www.york.gov.uk/webcasts

To find out more about the report, or to attend, visit:http://democracy.york.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=733&MId=8841

York Council backs all horses in devolution race – loss feared on wager

Back wrong horse

 The York Council has issued a media statement to coincide with today’s submission deadline to government, saying it has “been involved in the submission of a number of devolution bids, which propose giving more powers to local authorities from central government so that decisions are taken closer to the communities they affect.

This follows detailed dialogue between the council’s Executive and its officers alongside peers from neighbouring local authorities, central government and key organisations such as Local Enterprise Partnerships.

York has expressed an interest in potential bids for the Leeds City Region; a City of York, North Yorkshire and East Riding proposal and for further dialogue about a broader Greater Yorkshire geography”.

The bids can be read here

The Council has not released details of residents responses to its much hyped “consultation” on the issue.

The Council goes on to say, “These conversations with government will continue ahead of decisions on which, if any, deal York will be part of and the full economic, political and governance workings of it. The Executive has been clear on its commitment to consult and has undertaken face-to-face engagement with residents and businesses through a series of devolution conversations. Any decision on being part of a new authority will have to be ratified by Full Council”.
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