Coronavirus York updates – 8th April 2020

Advice for cyclists

Some good advice taken from the Minsterfm web site. https://www.minsterfm.com/news/local/3078679/coronavirus—wednesday-8th-april-live-local-updates/

One family group of cyclists was seen wobbling down the A1237 today. Parallel routes are safer!

NORTH YORKSHIRE POLICE ISSUES ADVICE TO NOVICE CYCLISTS

Police are sharing safety advice for cyclists as more people take to two wheels for their form of daily exercise.

Despite quieter roads, police are warning cyclists they still need to take safety seriously, as well as observing new rules to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

Government measures allow “one form of exercise a day, for example a run, walk, or cycle – alone or with members of your household”.

The government goes on to say: “When doing this you must minimise the time you are out of your home and stay at least two metres away from anyone else that isn’t from your household.”

Major Collision Investigation Sergeant Kirsten Aldridge said:

“While North Yorkshire roads are quieter, there are still lots of things cyclists need to be mindful of.

“Firstly, quieter roads have led to some drivers dramatically exceeding the speed limit. While we’re trying to enforce this as widely as possible, it puts cyclists and pedestrians at significant risk.

“Secondly, the government measures make it clear that cyclists need to practice social distancing and should only ride alone or with people from the same household. Please remember that, as our officers are out on patrol ensuring people follow these rules.

“Finally, we’d remind drivers that they should always expect the unexpected around each corner, especially at the moment, and pass cyclists at a minimum distance of 1.5 metres when it is safe to do so.”

North Yorkshire Police has also noticed that many new cyclists are taking to the road, including families with children who have started cycling as their one-a-day form of exercise.

The force is sharing the following seven safety tips with novices:

- Plan your journey in advance and advise someone of where you are going and when you intend to return, especially if you are cycling in a remote location.
- If you are riding as a family with young children, consider riding routes with dedicated cycle paths to ensure the safety of young children and pedestrians. Please remember that if you are cycling on the roads that vehicles such as HGVs, are still regularly travelling routes in order to move much-needed supplies. Large vehicles might scare and unbalance young children on bicycles when overtaking them.
- Ensure that your bicycle is road-worthy. If it has been unused for a while, ensure that the mechanisms such as brakes and gears are working and that tyres are pumped up before starting any ride. Brake failure can cause a serious collision.
- Think about your positioning in the road and whether you can be seen by other road users. Wearing reflective clothing and ensuring that your bike is fitted with lights and/ or reflective discs helps with visibility. Assuming a position towards the centre of the lane where possible maximises the rider’s line of vision and means that other road users have a clear view of you.
- If you are riding with protection around your face ensure that this does not restrict your head movement and that you are able to look around freely without restriction so that safety checks can be carried out.
- If you’re riding with your family, help motorists overtake you with the safe distance of 1.5 metres, promoted by our Close Pass campaign, by filtering down to single file.
- Effectively communicate with other road users, by using hand signals when turning left or right. Try to make eye contact with other road users and pedestrians to ensure that they have seen you.

Sgt Aldridge added: “As long as people follow the government’s rules about how they exercise and observe social distancing while they do it, we want to give people the knowledge they need to ride safely.

“North Yorkshire is a beautiful county with a strong cycling scene and 6,000 miles of roads. That’s plenty of road for everyone if all road users stick to the law, take sensible precautions and look out for one another.”

Takeaway deliveries in west York on Google Maps

Google maps https://www.google.com/maps/ is now listing takeaways that do home deliveries.

Download the app from https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/google-maps/id585027354

In west York they list Buongiorno (tel. 07985 797754), Bengal Lounge (tel. 01904 796666), Taverna Yamas (tel. 07960 920979), Woodthorpe Spice (tel. 01904 700070), Salsa Pizza (01904 788888), Pizza Hut (01904 606222), Tea on the Green (01904 789380) and several others.

Not sure how up to date it is.

More deaths from coronavirus at York Hospital

A total of 19 patients with confirmed coronavirus have now died at York Hospital, following a further three fatalities.

Grass cutting and weed control

This service continues.

The Council are maintaining the public highway, which includes highway verges and pavements to keep them in a safe and accessible condition, because:

• If the grass gets too long it will grow onto pavements causing slip/trip hazards and cause sight line issues at junctions

• if weeds grow on pavements they will become unsafe to walk on

• it will cause longer term damage to pavement surfaces, causing the breakup of the surface

• If we don’t keep the weeds under control at the beginning of the year this will put greater pressures on the service for the whole year.

All frontline staff, whether gardening or street cleaning are working alone to ensure social distancing.

NB. Please also keep boundary hedges/tree cut trimmed back from public footpaths

Food deliveries

The Council says that “Staff and volunteers of our community hubs and in the customer centre are continuing to work incredibly hard to support residents who need it. We have attached a document (who we are helping) which sets out who is deemed to be ‘extremely clinically vulnerable’ and the types of support we are offering them and others in communities across the city.

The extremely clinically vulnerable above are supported by food parcels from community hubs.Government guidance on this group and how to protect and work with them Click

In terms of wider support for residents who have asked for help with food:

Those who are generally able and financially secure but who are not able to shop are given a list of food delivery businesses and/or link them to the COVID-19 Mutual Aid facebook groups *

Older or disabled residents who need help with shopping and are financially secure are referred to specialist voluntary organisations such as Age UK, Good Gym
The medically shielded are delivered the Government-provided food which the council supplements especially for those with special dietary needs eg diabetics or coeliacs
People eligible for Food Bank vouchers are sent a delivery from the food bank where appropriate
People struggling for other reasons ie anxiety, caring responsibilities, mobility etc are delivered a Council-sourced food box put together at the hubs.

In addition, parents of children eligible for Free School Meals are given vouchers.

As well as this support volunteers are helping to check on people’s wellbeing by calling individuals to check they are ok and also chat to them for a while to help them feel they aren’t alone.

Vulnerable people who can ask City of York Council for help on COVID19help@york.gov.uk or 01904 551550.Anyone can ask for help from COVID19help@york.gov.uk if they don’t currently get help from CYC or the NHS, or have any help from family or friends”.

*NB. The Council have still not published a list of shops undertaking home deliveries despite many requests.

Morrisons

Morrisons now providing an “essentials” telephone ordering/doorstep delivery service for the vulnerable

Yorwaste

Yorwaste has become the latest employer to deploy theuir workfioece in support of street level public services.

Business grants

The Council started to make payments to local businesses on Monday. They will be working over Easter to complete the process. They are also making checks to weed out any fraudulent claims.

We have started making payments, with several million pounds worth of grants processed today. This is an entirely new process and we have a duty to quality assure every payment and protect York businesses grants from potential fraud. We have had 2,500 applications so far and need to run each one through the government’s anti-fraud software before we can process payments; this is to verify bank account details of organisations which have never had a financial relationship with us before. We’ve started contacting businesses as part of that process and appreciate your patience with us whilst we carry this out. Please remember we will only ask you to verify your details and would never ask you to make payments.

Support for children and young people

Kooth (www.kooth.com) is commissioned by TEWV to offer mental health and well -being support to young people in York and North Yorkshire aged 11-18 years. The service provides young people with:

An opportunity to access support services anonymously
Access to BACP accredited counsellors via online chat
Access on to online articles and magazines written by counsellors
An opportunity for young people to write their own articles and to share their story
Young people can set their own personal goals and are supported by the counsellors online
Young people can access the support service from any internet device, 365 days a year.

Contacts

If you have significant concern regarding a vulnerable pupil please contact MASH: 01904 551900, out of hours: 0845 0349417
If parents have questions regarding childcare, i.e. OOSC/PVI please direct them to: FIS@york.gov.uk

House building

To The Council says it is working to avoid delays to the council’s ambitious housing projects which might incur costs or slow the delivery of much-needed homes.

Lowfield Green

Following a 48-hour pause on construction at Lowfield Green (to complete a thorough risk assessment) a new site working procedure has been drawn up which allows construction of the 140 new homes to continue. The new way of working also keeps building contractor Wates’s employees and their self-employed contractors safely on site.

Ordnance Lane

Momentum around resident engagement has kept going! A workshop for residents on intergenerational living moved online to involve 19 residents and officers. It used a combination of pre-recorded presentations and a live panel with local residents taking centre stage.

Fresh light shed on York’s mysterious QUANGOs

Some of the affairs of York’s taxpayer funded but independently managed organisation are to be subject to public review next week. The Councils first comprehensive “Shareholder” committee meeting is to look at the results being obtained by several organisations.

These include

Make it York (The tourism and marketing body)
Veritau Ltd – An audit body
City of York Trading – A recruitment and temporary staff agency
Yorwaste/SJB Recycling (Process local waste and refuse)

In the past these bodies have been subject to intermittent “light” scrutiny with many background details contained in “confidential” annexes. Several private annexes are still being reported to next Tuesday’s meeting but fewer than in the past

The meeting is being chaired by Cllr Nigel Ayre who was also responsible for bringing into the public domain reports on the Councils major contracts letting processes.

Make it York (MIY) plans to appoint a new post of “Head of Commercial and Revenue Generation” at a basic salary of £60,000 a year. Performance bonuses could bring the remuneration up to £80.000 pa. MIY failed to recruit to the post at a lower salary earlier in the year. The post has the objective of increasing MIY’s revenues over time such that the company can, in the first instance, become self-funding (relieving the council of its ongoing financial contribution to the business) and, beyond that, increasing the sums available to reinvest in the city.

It is unclear how potential conflicts between commercial targets and York’s traditional values will be reconciled. There have been too many disputes between local traders, visitors and residents in the past few years.

Separately MIY reports an expected £248,063 loss in the year. This is 6304 above budget expectations. Increased overheads are blamed together with poor merchandise sales in the tourist centre. The organisations new Chair Greg Dyke is due to take over the role in January.

The report touches on the Christmas Market and ongoing difficulties with access for traders (see below).

Veritau Ltd, a company jointly owned by North Yorkshire County Council and the City of York Council, wants to expand. It hopes in future to provide audit services for several additional Council and other public bodies.

City of York Trading Ltd (trading principally as WorkwithYork and WorkwithSchools) was formed in 2011 with the intention of supplying temporary staff to CYC, to schools (in and around the York area) and to other outside organisations. Through City of York Trading Ltd, the reductions in cost to CYC and the return of the profit achieved are designed to assist CYC’s financial position. If CYC had to source staff in the open market, the cost would be substantially higher than current rates paid to the Company.

Unfortunately the reports from this organisation continue to be largely opaque. The shareholder committee is being asked to approve a business plan which is enclosed in a confidential annex. Similarly, the committee is being asked to endorse the appointment of a n additional company director but without the name of the candidate being revealed.

The net cost/return to the Council of this body is not revealed.

Yorwaste/SJB Recycling. The York Council owns 23% of this company. Yorwaste operates Waste Transfer Stations (WTS), Materials Recycling Facilities (MRF), Green Waste Composting, and HWRCs for both NYCC and CYC. It also manages the closed landfill aftercare obligations at several sites including Harewood Landfill (which closed to general waste in March of this year). SJB currently operates three sites (based at Yorkshire Water waste plants) providing green waste composting services to local authorities.

The company is forecasting a loss of over £300,000 on the year. The company blames the impact of a facility closure (Seamer); external commodity prices; and two waste fires for the downturn in its fortunes.

SJB is forecasting a reduced level of profit (£159,000). With 2 of its three operational sites closing it is heavily dependent on achieving a new contract before the end of the year.

Acomb Wood gets grant from Yorwaste

The Friends of Acomb Wood, which which is located between Foxwood and Woodthorpe, are £8393 better off this morning thanks to a grant from local waste management company Yorkwaste.

The company operates the nearby Harewood Whin landfill site and distributes grants each year to local environmental projects.

The Friends of Acomb Wood are a voluntary conservation body which has recently provided improved paths through the wood.

They have produced an on line album detailing their work. It can be accessed via the following link: http://tinyurl.com/AcombWoodPhoto

The friends group welcome new volunteer helpers and can be contacted on York (01904) 553392 Email: maryhayward@btinternet.com

Yorwaste has also provided grant for a National railway museum ambulance train project

Odour problem from Harewood Whin prompts action call

Burning compost blamed

Problems with a fire in the composting plant at Harewood Whin has been blamed for a continuing odour problem in parts of Acomb.

Although there were no signs of a fire today residents have contacted the Environment Agency to complain about the problem.

Cllr Andrew Waller has been called in and has promised to find out the cause of the fire and what is being done to prevent a repetition.

Unfortunately YorWaste have not provided any updates on the problem on their website