Nick Clegg offers York businesses growth funding

A new round of the Government’s Regional Growth Fund has opened for businesses across the country, and City of York Council is encouraging firms in York to bid for a share of the £300 million cash pot.

Nick Clegg at launch of Regional Growth Fund

Nick Clegg at launch of Regional Growth Fund

The fund, which has already supported almost 300 projects and programmes across the country, is open to bids of £1 million or more for high quality private sector projects and programmes that leverage private sector investment and create sustainable jobs.

Round five of the Regional Growth Fund will close to applications on Monday 9 December, with successful bidders announced in Spring 2014. Bids will need to demonstrate the potential for creating long-term, private-sector led economic growth and employment, and also evidence a significant private sector matched funding contribution.

For further information, or for help with the application process businesses can visit https://www.gov.uk/understanding-the-regional-growth-fund#round-5-now-open-for-bids or contact Andrew Sharp or Charles Storr in City of York Council’s Economic Development Unit on 01904 555834 or 01904 555901.

Holgate children’s centre finally gets new occupier.

A team that supports some of York’s most vulnerable children has moved to new dedicated premises in Nursey Drive in Holgate.

City of York Council’s “Looked After Children Support Team” was formed last year to help support the city’s Looked After Children, their families and carers. The team of 12 specialist support practitioners will move to the site of the old Holgate Family Centre on Nursery Drive at the end of the month.

This is a welcome move by the Council which should, in our view, undertake more devolution to help regenerate sub-urban areas.

The team liaises with partner agencies across the city to coordinate and facilitate contact between Looked After Children and their parents and other relatives, support parenting assessments and re-unification plans, as well as helping Looked After and Adopted Children understand and make sense of their own life histories.

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York Council refuses to test market on surplus land sales.

The worrying trend, where the York Council fails to put surplus assets (mainly land and property) on the open market, looks set to continue.

There were a lot of raised eyebrows last year when the Council chose to sell land at Hungate for a knock down price. They claimed that this was necessary in order to attract Hiscox insurers to the City.

The trend continued earlier this year when they decided to deal direct with a leaseholder in Redness Street while the adjacent landowner is being given first refusal of the vacated St Anthony’s House office site.

Now we understand that Oliver House may also be sold (or leased) in December without ever reaching the open market.

The Councillor responsible for these decisions was questioned at the Council meeting recently.

 Oliver House

Oliver House

He accepted that professional valuations placed on Council assets in the past had substantially under-estimated their real value. This had become apparent on properties such as the Bonding Warehouse and the Edmund Wilson pool site when open market bids greatly exceeded expectations.

However he wouldn’t give an assurance that open market bids would be invited for all upcoming property sales.

The question asked was:

Question: In the light of the new buoyancy in the York development market place, will the Cabinet Member agree that all sales of Council property and land will be subject to a competitive process which maximises the receipt that is available for the taxpayer?”

Cllr Williams responded, “Of course the default position should be to go to the open market. However, there will always be some situations where it makes financial and economic sense not to stick to that default position and not to have a competitive process. This should be if it is felt that one organisation has a special interest in a site and would pay a premium above the going market rate to obtain the site. An example of this would be a sitting leaseholder who wishes to buy the freehold. To have a blanket policy would simply expose the council to potentially not maximising the use of assets.”

Councils have a legal duty to get the best value that they can in their financial dealings.

If they don’t then the District Auditor can be asked to investigate.

Latest planning application Dringhouses and Woodthorpe Ward

Below are the latest planning applications received by the York Council for the Dringhouses and Woodthorpe ward.

Full details can be found by clicking the application reference

Dringhouses and Woodthorpe

Location: 4 Olivias Court Nelsons Lane York YO24 1HD

Proposal: Single storey front extension

Ref No: 13/03241/FUL

Applicant: Mr Fraser Brown Contact Miss Kate Fewson Consultation Expiry Date 11 November 2013Case Officer: Elizabeth Potter Expected Decision Level DEL
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Representations can be made in favour of, or in objection to, any application via the Planning on line web site.

NB. The Council now no longer routinely consults neighbours by letter when an application is received.

Salt bin petition tops 1000 signatures ahead of tonights crunch meeting.

Yorkshire and Humber MEP Rebecca Taylor has backed calls to reverse cuts to salt bins and gritting routes in York after 1,000 residents signed a petition against the proposals.

Rebecca, Keith and residents

Rebecca, Keith and residents

The Labour run City of York Council plans to cut two-thirds of salt bins and remove nearly 30 miles of roads from priority gritting routes, including on bus routes.

Lib Dem Councillors Ann Reid, Nigel Ayre and Keith Aspden have ‘called-in’ the decision for further review and the proposals are now set to be reconsidered at a special meeting of York’s Corporate and Scrutiny Management Committee later today.

The plans have met with fierce opposition from residents and Kingsway Area Residents’ Association recently said that the cuts could see elderly and disabled people trapped in their homes this winter.

Speaking on a visit to Fulford at the weekend Rebecca Taylor, Lib Dem MEP for Yorkshire & the Humber, commented:

“The fact that 1,000 residents have signed the Lib Dem petition shows the strength of local opposition to Labour’s plans. The Council needs to consider the impact the cuts will have on elderly and vulnerable in places like here in Fulford. I would urge the Labour Council to listen to local residents and reconsider their plans to cut salt bins and gritting routes in York”.

Councillor Keith Aspden, Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group on City of York Council, commented:

“Local residents in Fulford and Heslington tell me they want the Labour Council to focus on delivering basic frontline services like gritting and salt bins. This is also what the Lib Dem Group has consistently called for including in our motion at last week’s Full Council. However, while Labour is finding money to buy an Arts Barge and increase the pay of senior staff they are still cutting basic services for taxpayers”.

The Lib Dem petition against the plans. It can still be found here: http://yorklibdems.org.uk/en/petition/save-our-salt

Labour add £1 million to York’s annual debt repayment levels in just 24 months

The Council has admitted that increased borrowing means that Council taxpayers are now paying £1m a year more in debt charges than in 2011.

Kings Square work

Kings Square work

Most has been used to bolster what the Council describes as its Economic Development Fund.

£18 million has been committed to this fund already which is being used to pay for projects such as:

• Refurbishment of Kings Square

• Acquisition of an “Arts Barge”

• Tour de France start

• Newgate market refurbishment

• New City centre bus stops

Of the annual additional payments around £0.5 million goes on interest charges while £0.5 makes staged repayments of the principal.

It will take over 20 years to fully repay the borrowing

York congestion cameras still not working – York Council

Moving York’s CCTV cameras onto a system that provides residents with real time information on traffic congestion “has required more recoding of the website’s processing system than originally anticipated.” the responsible Councillor has admitted.

click to access

click to access

Live camera information has been available in North Yorkshire for several years but the York equivalent has been dogged by delays despite investment of over £300,000.

The Council now says that “this additional work is now almost complete and the CCTV images should be available on the website during October / November”.

For the mobile applications the updates required will be included in the next update releases of the apps, expected later this year.”

We will see.

Shame they weren’t working for today’s Yorkshire Marathon

NO cost to taxpayers for “shop4support web” site …..yet

click to access

click to access

The York Council is saying that it is not paying for the web site which provides Eaccess to some services for disabled residents.

However it may have to contribute £15,000 a year to maintain the site which lists a mixture of public and private sector service suppliers.

The “shop4support” web site became available earlier in the year but has received little publicity. It bears the City of York Council logo.

Lib Dem Councillor Lynn Jeffries asked at the last Council meeting “how the Cabinet member was ensuring that the information contained on the website is accurate, accessible, comprehensive and up to date?”

No detailed response was provided other than to say that the “family Information service” is responsible for the content.

It remains unclear how decisions are made on which organisations to advertise on the site.

The web site is apparently to be formally launched later in the year

12% drop in shopper numbers in September

There were 12% fewer shoppers in central York in September according to new figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats.

click to download full data

click to download full data

The results come from the one remaining “footfall” camera which is located in Parliament Street.

It confirms the downward trend from August when 4% fewer people accessed the City centre in the wake of the introduction of new traffic restrictions on Lendal Bridge and Coppergate.

So far in October numbers ate down by 7% compared to the same period last year.

It has also emerged that the footfall camera located in Coney Street was a victim of the cuts earlier in the year.

The figures will cause serious concern to the retail community in the City.

Although seemingly more resilient than some other shopping areas –as evidenced by the relatively low number of empty premises – few businesses could sustain a reduction in the number of customers that has been seen over the last couple of months.

As revealed on this web site earlier in the week, over 8000 penalty notices were sent to separate addresses during September. Of these 5481 (67%) were to sent to addresses outside the YO postcode area, raising fears that the reputation of the City is being irreparably damaged.

Click here to download the full data.