The York Councilissued information for local businesses earlier today. They promise to update it regularly as national announcements are being made with increasing frequency.
For example the closure of restaurants and pubs mean that many may now wish to trade on a takeaway/home delivery basis.
The Council recently substantially increased its debt burden when it bought various retail buildings in the City so it has a vested interest in ensuring local businesses survive the current problems!
Following the Prime Minister’s announcement this week, City of York Council has been working with the Department for Education and with schools and early years settings across York to set out the plan for our children’s education across the coming months.
As you will know, many schools and settings are impacted by reduced staff levels as individuals follow government advice to self-isolate, to help slow the spread of COVID-19. In response to this, schools and settings must remain open whilst managing lower numbers of staff.
Schools, colleges, nurseries, childminders and other registered childcare settings will remain open for children of key workers and vulnerable children where they can.
It is important to note that all childcare and educational settings remain safe places for children. So the fewer children making the journey to school, and the fewer children in educational settings, the lower the risk that the virus can spread and infect vulnerable individuals in wider society.
York Councillor Mark Warters has suggested that empty York Council owned properties should be cleared, cleaned and used to provide additional hospital space should it be necessary.
Available empty properties include the brand new James House (which was due to open this month), Oakhaven and Willow House. The latter are former care homes.
The properties could be used to supplement existing NHS hospitals. It is possible that additional space will be required for services such as pre and post illness infection testing.
Separately, it has been suggested that the Council be ready to reintroduce regular skip visits to local neighbourhoods. These would reduce the pressures on waste collection services where staffing levels are currently under pressure.
Skips visited many estates until about 5 years ago when the service stopped.
Their return could provide an alternative if uncollected waste causes a public health concern.
The Council are recruiting waste collection drivers and loaders now. Find out more by calling 01904 554234 or visiting www.workwithyork.co.uk/jobs
City of York Council is bolstering all its front line teams together so that it can continue providing essential services across the city, including collecting your household waste (black bins), recycling boxes, cleaning York’s streets and collecting litter bins, carrying out pothole repairs and maintaining public toilets.
Unfortunately, we have experienced a reduction in our frontline workforce and this is having an impact on some services, including recycling collections. The council is doing everything it can to ensure collections continue and is working weekends to collect missed recycling where possible.
To make sure services can keep running we need to recruit more drivers and loaders in our waste services team so we have enough people ready and able to do the job.
We’re working with Work With York to recruit drivers and loaders now. Find out more by calling 01904 554234 or visiting www.workwithyork.co.uk/jobs/
Cllr Paula Widdowson, Executive Member Climate Change, said: “It’s really important that we keep essential services running across the city such as household waste collections. We’re doing our best and have tried and tested measures in place, such as we did during Storm Dennis. But the reality is that these services like many others will face significant challenges. So we’re calling out for anyone who is physically fit, available and wants a temporary job. We want to help you so please contact Work With York and we’ll get you on our books and into our team as soon as possible.”
These are unprecedented times and this will mean some non-essential services will need to be temporarily suspended so that we can redeploy all our staff into keeping essential services running.
During Storm Dennis and Storm Ciara front line teams were redeployed into different services so that they could focus on protecting the city. This meant they had to ‘down tools’ temporarily on other work, and the same thing will happen again here.
As works are almost complete on the repaving scheme for Stonegate and the roadworks on Monkbar, we are aiming to complete these as planned. Other non-essential roadworks schemes will be temporarily suspended.
Check when your bins will next be collected, get the latest service updates and order a new bin – all online! www.york.gov.uk/waste
Details of Sainsburies assisted shopping schemes can be found viathis link
Volunteer and Help Scheme
City of York Council are working with the many kind-hearted volunteers and with the established voluntary sector to recruit, train and deploy volunteers to support the most vulnerable in the city who do not have access to any help.
Residents who would like help and volunteer are being asked to sign up to volunteering@york.gov.uk or call 01904 551550, or go to www.york.gov.uk/COVIDVolunteering. The Council will ask for details of their skills and capacity, match them to an existing voluntary group or train them, coordinating with city groups and council requirements, managing them to deliver support where it is needed.
Those vulnerable residents who do not currently have any access to support, but who need help because of impact of COVID-19, are asked to email our Community Support Coordinators at covid19help@york.gov.uk or call 01904 551550 for assistance.
As the health and safety of our residents is our priority, this structured and safe approach to volunteering is to ensure people get the support they need in a co-ordinated and safe way.
UPDATE: We have been overwhelmed by the amazing response to this post. We currently have filled all vacancies however have a waiting list running in the background should any other opportunities open up
The leader of City of York Council has outlined a coronavirus response, including business support and an emergency fund.
Council leader makes statement to Executive detailing city’s response
Council commits to emergency fund to support local residents, business and communities
Huge effort to deliver support package to businesses – including updating 4000 business rates accounts by the end of the week
City of York Council has announced that it will create its own emergency fund to support local residents, business and communities in response to the outbreak of Coronavirus, whilst acting swiftly to make sure residents and businesses can access the Government’s support packages as swiftly as possible.
The Leader of the Council, Councillor Keith Aspden, announced the fund at today’s Executive meeting (Thursday 19 March 2020), adding that fund will focus support to York’s residents, businesses and communities over the coming weeks, on top of any measures announced by the Government. Full details of the fund will be announced next week.
Councillor Aspden reiterated that the Council is continuing to work with the NHS and partners to respond to the outbreak of Coronavirus and that the Council is focusing resources where they are needed to ensure most services can continue to be delivered, with priority given to frontline services that keep our city moving.
Local ward funding is to be accelerated and used flexibly to help community organisations respond to local needs during the outbreak of coronavirus.
This source of funding is ideal for supporting local charities, community groups and other agencies delivering the support to residents in need.
Ward Councillors are being encouraged to work with their communities to identify needs and solutions and use their ward budgets accordingly. The Council will be as flexible and as responsive as we can in approving expenditure, so long as it complies with the council’s financial regulations.
The Council will be able to process applications very quickly to ensure that funding can be with the relevant community organisation immediately for use to support local residents.
Cllr Darryl Smalley, Executive Member for Culture, Leisure and Communities at City of York Council, said:
City of York Council is doing everything possible respond to the current situation, and the latest part of this is ensuring that every penny possible goes to those on the frontline in the coming weeks.
“Ward Councillors have been urged to consider how the ward budgets, particularly the Safer Communities Fund, can be deployed in a way that supports their communities through Coronavirus.
Ward committee funding will be as flexible as possible and any funds granted for date-specific activities will be extended until it is safe for them to be held.”
The scams take several forms which
include (so far):
·
Messages claiming to be
from HMRC offering a tax refund due to changes in the law around Covid-19,
recipients have to click a link which takes them to a fraudulent website
·
Messages claiming to be
from the Center for Disease Control or from the World Health Organisation.
These messages offer the recipient the chance to view a list of confirmed cases
within their local area by clicking on a link and making a Bitcoin payment.
·
Emails claiming to be
from a virologist sending an attached document with instructions on how to
avoid the Coronavirus. The attachment is malicious.
·
Fraudulent online sales
of masks and hand sanitiser which never materialise. If an online shopping
offer looks too good to be true, then it probably is.
Please do not click on links or open
attachments and take time to check that the email is from a legitimate source.
Please be aware that fraudsters go to great lengths to make their
communications with you look genuine.
As Covid-19 continues to spread,
fraudsters are likely to continue using the anxiety it generates to trick
people out of their personal data and hard -earned money. You can find more
information about the scams listed above online. The BBC have summarised these
scams in this article https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51838468
More than ever, as a community you
need to be aware of those in your locality who are elderly, live alone and who
are vulnerable. Please look after and support each other
The following changes will be introduced from this Sunday 22 March
PARK & RIDE
Park & Ride services will run every 15 minutes instead of the current 10 minute intervals. Services will start and finish at normal times We will be producing a specially-printed timetable which will be posted at P&R stations and stops for customers.
CITY & UNIVERSITY SERVICES
Sundays: Will operate a normal Sunday service until 2000, after which evening services on 1, 4, 6, 66 will operate at hourly intervals.
Monday – Friday: Will operate a Saturday Service with additional early morning journeys Monday to Friday, evening services on 1, 4, 6, 66 will operate at hourly intervals after 2000.
Saturday: Will operate a normal Saturday service until 2000, after which evening services on 1, 4, 6, 66 will operate at hourly intervals.
We are advising customers to check for updates on the First York Twitter feed and the company’s website https://www.firstgroup.com/yorkwhich also has customer information about Coronavirus. Detailed times will be published shortly.
Support for vulnerable people
To help meet residents’ needs, particularly those most at risk or isolated from communities, the Council has created a help line and support.
Those vulnerable residents who do not currently have any access to support, but who need help because of impact of COVID-19, are asked to email our Community Support Coordinators at covid19help@york.gov.uk or call 01904 551550 for assistance.
Volunteering
Thank you for sharing the messages regarding volunteering, we hope that you can continue to do so. We are asking that people register their support by emailing volunteering@york.gov.ukor calling 01904 551550.
We will ask for details of their skills and capacity, match them to an existing voluntary group or train them ourselves, coordinating with city groups and council requirements, manage them to deliver support where it is needed.
We have a free post address & will write letters to anyone who is isolated & doesn’t use the internet but still needs to be connected! Our Freepost address is: Healthwatch York, FREEPOST RTEG-BLES-RRYJ 15 Priory Street YO1 6ET
Fenwicks
We have therefore taken the very difficult decision to temporarily close all Fenwick stores to the public from 6pm on Thursday 19th March until further notice
Tesco
As from Thursday 19 March
1. Only 3 items per customer on every product line 2. All meat, fish, deli counters and salad bars closed 3. All stores close at 10pm 4. Monday, Wednesday & Friday 9am – 10am – elderly customers only except in Express stores 5. To free up slots for vulnerable people nd who normally shop on line or click and collect please consider shopping in store to free up slots 6. Will be encouraging card payment and introducing distancing measures at checkouts
York Councillor Mark Warters has suggested that empty York Council owned properties should be cleared, cleaned and used to provide additional hospital space should it be necessary.
The leader of City of York Council has outlined a coronavirus response, including business support and an emergency fund.
