The end of the holidays brings with it a need to deal with some issues. Today we have reported issues with
Hopefully they will be addressed quickly now.
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.
Contractors were out today removing nettle growth from the side of the Foxwood Lane footpath.
The nettles had been a nuisance during the late summer period although not, this year, as bad as in some previous years.
Mechanical treatment – often by local farmers – is usually an efficient and economical way of controlling weeds and cutting back hedges.
Meanwhile a Freedom of Information request has revealed that this year weed control contractors have only been paid part of the £37,020.89 value of the contract. The response says that £18,498.70 has so far been paid during the current year.
The response does reveal the amounts paid to specialist weed control contractors over the last 9 years.
Interestingly the York Council, in the Spring, accepted a tender the value of which was only half that submitted in 2011.
It was later discovered that the list of streets to be treated was incomplete.
There have been chronic problems with weed control during the summer and, as we reported a few days ago, many streets still require attention.
The York Council has had a good week in providing public services. 100% refuse collection success today with the only significant missed collections, earlier in the week, down to “blocked accesses”. Their web page detailing service standards achieved can be accessed by clicking here
Elsewhere the fallen leaves that we reported on Bellhouse Way have been cleared from the paths
We’d reported on several occasions that the stile access from Foxwood Lane onto Acomb Moor was unstable. It has now collapsed (wood rot).
Hopefully the field owners and local Councillors will get it fixed. There si no grazing on the moor at present so security is not compromised.
A decision on the Public Right of Way route, which uses the stile, will be made by the York Council in February.
We understand that The Beagle is advertising for a new landlord. The pub has been in use since 1977.
We reported last week that several of the Council owned bus shelters in west York were looking shabby. Some were overgrown with weeds and undergrowth.
We are pleased to report that, following our highlighting the issue to the York Council , some of the shelters have been tidied up. Undergrowth has been cut back from the shelters making them much more user friendly.
However the work undertaken has also served to emphasise how much these shelters need a coat of paint and other refurbishment.
Many are now rusting quite badly.
We were also pleased to see for the first time for some time today that the Cornlands Park was largely free of litter.
There seems to be a slow improvement in some public service standards in the City following a disappointing summer.
It looks like the improvements to the weed killing programme on hard surfaces have failed to materialise.
A “third” application of weed killer was to have been applied to drainage gullies, footpaths, forecourts and other areas during the last 4 weeks.
While there have been improvements to some traffic islands (the build up of silt on Longfield Lane, Foxwood Lane and Gale Lane has been removed) the vast majority of the A1237 is remains overgrown.
The A59, Water Lane and Jockey Lane – all reported months ago – remain untreated.
There will be some serious questions to be answered at the meeting.
Reports are emerging from the Council which claim that the 12 bus service, which was to have terminated in Woodthorpe from next Sunday, will now continue to serve the Acomb Wood Drive, Bellhouse Way and Foxwood Lane loop.
The decision – which is understood to involve a Council subsidy – was taken in a behind closed doors decision. No advanced notice of the proposal was published by the Council.
The service will run on an approximate 40 minute frequency.
The original plan would have left most of the 500 homes on the Acomb Park estate without an accessible bus service for large parts of the day.
A copy of the Mon-Fri First timetable, which will operate from 30th September, can be downloaded by clicking here
A copy of the Saturday timetable, which will apply from 5th October, can be downloaded by clicking here
Changes to service 14 were announced earlier in the summer.
