Book launch evening – Thur 15 Nov, 7pm to 8.30pm at Dringhouses Library

P J Quinn are a mother and daughter team who have written a series of crime novels. Their new book, Poison Pen, the second in a series featuring D I Ambrose, will be launched at Dringhouse library.

The crime is set in Old Chalk Heath village, and the writers set riddles and lay out the crime scene for you to solve.

The mother, Pauline Kirk, is a poet and her daughter, Jo Summers, is a lawyer who writes text books for the legal press.

Come along and hear Pauline and Jo explain their books and unveil dastardly crimes in Saltaire.

Tickets £2, includes free glass of wine. To book and for further information please contact Dringhouses Library, tel.01904 552674, email: dringhouses.library@york.gov.uk

See also click http://www.pjquinn.co.uk/index.html

The Councils East area planning committee will meet on Thursday with one of its longest agendas in recent times. Whether this signals an upturn in the local economy we will have to wait to see but an increase in investment levels is welcome.

The projects to be considered include:

• The erection of three-storey block of 16, 2 bedroom apartments and 7, two storey 3 bed houses with associated access at the former YWCA on Water Lane.

• Change of use from offices to 8 residential apartments at Hollycroft in Wenlock Terrace

• The installation of roof mounted flues and associated external plant and machinery with a ground mounted fresh air handling unit to ventilate the Nanocentre, a facility within the building associated with research into the production of solar cells and precision silicon fibre optics. The building is located at Helix House on Innovation Way in Heslington and is being challenged by local Cllr N Barnes. (No doubt many will think that this is just the kind of hi tech industry that the Council should be encouraging?)

• The erection of a single 50kW wind turbine with a hub height of 25 metres at Crockey Hill Road near Wheldrake

• Erection of six houses and the conversion of a barn into three dwellings on land to the rear of the Fox Inn Public House located on The Village in Stockton-on-the-Forest.

• The temporary use of part of a car park at the Designer Outlet on St Nicholas Avenue for a funfair

• A change of use and conversion of existing property to an 8 bed house in multiple occupation in Wilberforce Avenue

• A mooring for one vessel on the towpath adjacent to the Millennium Bridge on the eastern side of the River Ouse to be used as a café.

• The erection of a dormer bungalow to rear with access from Thirkleby Way at 305 Hull Road

• Substantial open-sided steel framed barn at the eastern edge of the Market Garden, Eastfield Lane Dunnington

Full details of the proposals can be found by clicking here: http://tinyurl.com/East-Plan-8th-Oct

For the second time in less than 12 months an event organised by the York Council and labelled as a “Wonderland” has proved to be a big let down for residents.

Visitors to the Illuminating York event in the Museums Garden have described the event as “lack lustre”, drab and “disappointing”. It contrasts with the enthusiastic reception given to the festival in previous years.

The budget for the whole festival – much of which it was hoped would be recovered from admission ticket sales – was around £300,000. Unlike previous feature events at the festival, which had free admission, the main event has a £5 ticket charge, with restricted admission times.

There are lessons to be learned in “over hyping” unproven events and we expect the Council to undertake an independent scrutiny review of what ahs gone wrong.

There are now concerns that other events being staged under the Illuminating York banner may suffer as a result of the bad publicity.

Fortunately the Illuminating York Minster programme has been a big success with the new “Orb” hailed as a unique visitor experience. Click here http://illuminatingyork.org.uk/supporting-programme-2012/ for details of other events

NB Another “Wonderland” experience – a Christmas Grotto – was organised by the Council last winter and was also heavily criticised by customers. A few weeks ago the bill for the “Grotto” had still not been paid.

A Freedom of Information request has revealed that York Taxpayers will have to find over £66,000 to fund the Olympic and Paralympic events staged in York this summer.

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There had been some speculation that sponsorship would cover the costs of the popular event.

York police are urging the public to come forward following a series of an robberies which are believed to be linked.

The offences occurred between 6.50pm and 8.00pm on Wednesday 31 October 2012, in the Walmgate, The Groves and New Earswick areas of the city.

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The agenda for the York Council’s Cabinet meeting on Tuesday includes an item about the York and North Yorkshire Credit Union.

It is marked as “secret” with absolutely no explanatory papers made available for the public.

It is time for the Council – which originally sponsored the York Credit Union – to come clean about its future and explain why it has gone bust.

Depositors and creditors deserve to be kept in the picture. If there were any problems then the Council should have intervened long before now. (The Council had representation on the Board of the Credit Union together with some investments.)

The FCCS have issued the following statement http://www.fscs.org.uk/news/2012/november/youre-protected-fscs-t-jv27rs211/

“You’re protected, FSCS tells thousands of North Yorkshire Credit Union members

Thousands of North Yorkshire Credit Union members, which went bust today, will get their money back within the next week, says the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). It’s stepping in to protect members of the credit union which has locations throughout Yorkshire.

FSCS protects consumers when authorised financial services firms fail. It has protected more than 4.5m people and paid out more than £26bn in compensation since 2001. It is pledging to pay back the credit union’s members within seven days. And it won’t take long. On average FSCS pays out in a few days.

The FSCS process is automatic. Members of the credit union will not need to lift a finger to get their money back. FSCS will use the credit union’s records to automatically send payments to members. FSCS protects savings up to £85,000.
People with less than a thousand pounds will receive a letter to get cash over the counter at the Post Office. Anyone with more than this will receive a cheque. This gives people their cash back quickly and gives them the most options for depositing it elsewhere, FSCS says.

About 5,000 savers have some £1.9m in North Yorkshire Credit Union.

Kate Bartlett, Director of Operations, says: “FSCS is protecting members of the North Yorkshire Credit Union. There is no cause for concern. We will get your savings back to you within one week. And you won’t need to lift a finger because the process is automatic.”

Answers to questions can be found by clicking here: http://tinyurl.com/Credit-union-Q-A

Predictably the Council has decided to spend another £1.6 million on “refurbishing” the market in Newgate. A report outlining their plan was published last week – several hours before a “consultation” exercise on the future of the market was due to finish.

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Clearly the Council had already decided what it would do and the consultation was just a smokescreen.

The Council sees the specialist markets in Parliament Street continuing and hopes to re-coop some of its investment through increased stall rental income.

We think that the Council is right to make improvements to the City market.

The scale of the investment, though, seems extravagent and ignores at least one major consequence.

Sub-urban shopping areas – already under pressure from superstores and neighbourhood mini supermakets – may see more customers drifting away.

The Acomb Front Street area in particular needs investment and one option might have been to provide an occasional market there within the pedestrian zone.

Having closed its Acomb office, the Council is partly responsible for the decline in footfall – and hence potential customers – in the Acomb area.

Replacement investment is long overdue.

Project costs for the Community stadium are set to increase from £750,000 to £1.2 million according to a report being considered by the Council next week http://tinyurl.com/York-stadium-update.

The Council is also abandoning the “all party” committee which was driving the project forward with overall responsibility now resting with a single Labour Cabinet member (Cllr Crisp). With many decision meetings now being held in private (Cllr Crisp hasn’t taken a decision in public since 8th May) once again it seems that the Council has something to hide.

The Council has confirmed that it will invest £4 million in the project (on top of the value of the stadium site and ongoing salary costs) but with the latest business case failing to show how this expenditure will be recovered.

With the Council now seeking to privatise the running of all its sports and swimming facilities, the current operator of the Waterworld/Huntington Stadium complex (GLL which is a “social enterprise” company) has given notice to terminate its management contract with effect from 1st April 2013.

The Council are hoping to negotiate a new reduced rental for the facility which currently brings in around £260,000 to the Councils coffers each year. They are hoping to keep secret what the reduced rental charge will be.