A complete list of York polling stations can be downloaded by clicking this link
Latest planning applications 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
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Location: 257 Thanet Road York YO24 2PE
Proposal: Erection of 1no. detached dwelling
Ref No: 15/00710/FUL
Applicant: Mr A Brown Contact John Howlett Consultation Expiry Date 26 May 2015 Case Officer: Jonathan Kenyon 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. http://planningaccess.york.gov.uk/online-applications/
The Council now no longer routinely consults neighbours by letter when an application is received.
Quiet on York roads so far this morning!
Click to update to see latest traffic info
The Council have issued the following media release
City of York Council is reminding residents and visitors to plan ahead for Saturday 2 May when stage two of the inaugural Tour de Yorkshire will finish in York. A women’s race will take place ahead of the stage two finish, covering four laps of the 20km circuit from 10.30am.
Dame Sarah Storey and Joanna Rowsell will line up alongside nearly 100 of the UK’s best female cyclists to tackle four laps of the 20km circuit. At approximately 2.25pm the Tour de Yorkshire peloton, including Sir Bradley Wiggins and Olympic gold medallist Samuel Sanchez, will enter the circuit from Holtby and take on two and a half laps of the circuit before a dramatic finish on Knavesmire Road.
The circuit will see the riders start at the Knavesmire before heading through Micklegate Bar and crossing Ouse Bridge. They will then continue through the city centre and on to Layerthorpe before heading out via Heworth and Stockton Lane to Murton. They will then pass through Osbaldwick, Tang Hall and Layerthorpe. The peloton will then go over Skeldergate bridge, down Bishopthorpe Road and rejoin Knavesmire Road for the start/finish line.
The New Ebor Street Feast will add a splash of fun and a hint of magic to what already promises to be a fantastic day. Positioned alongside the finish line on the Knavesmire the festival with give spectators, residents and visitors a chance to sample some of the finest food and drink Yorkshire has to offer.
York will also play host to several street parties throughout the day, including the ‘E by Eck’ street party on Bishy Road, and a day of events in both Fossgate and Micklegate.
Residents and tourists are advised that the route will be closed from 8am on Saturday 2 May until approximately 5pm, or as soon as possible after the race has finished. During the time that the roads are closed their will be no access for vehicles to properties either adjacent to or on the race route itself. This will also include streets connected to the route that can not be accessed from elsewhere.
Anyone who is planning to travel on Saturday 2 May will need to ensure that they have parked their vehicle in an area where they can access the remaining open road network. No vehicles will be allowed to drive on the race route after road closures are in place. Residents are also advised to pass this information to anyone intending to visit them during the weekend.
For more information on the Tour de Yorkshire in York visit www.york.gov.uk/tdy. For more information on travelling in York visit www.itravelyork.info
Fresh look for York Connect to Support – Core Information and Advice eMarketplace
click to access
A website offering information about local services, providers and activities and groups for adults needing care and support has a fresh new look this month.
Connect to Support York has been updated and refreshed to ensure that the information on the site is inline with new national changes to care and support as laid out in the Care Act legislation.
The site enables people to find out about activities and groups in their local area; source information and advice, and purchase their own help and support directly from provider organisations.
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Plant sale and coffee morning 15th May
Council owns over 110,000 square metres of unused land
New figures obtained under Freedom of Information legislation suggest that the York Council has been slow to exploit the full potential of the “brownfield” derelict land that it owns.
The list includes the former park and ride car park on Tadcaster Road which current houses a little used pay and display car park.
Residents had already highlighted the vacant plot to the rear of the Acomb Library which has originally been intend to house a replacement Acomb Council office together with some much needed affordable homes. The project was dropped by the new Labour Council in 2011 and the site has remained derelict ever since.
Now officials have suggested that the project may be revived although there have been absolutely no consultation on any proposals.
Most of the vacant land is at the former Lowfields and Manor school sites. The Council has also courted unpopularity at Lowfields by refusing to keep local residents up to date on its development plans.
Also on the list is Oliver House which has been empty for over 2 years and for which offers of over £3 million have been received.
The Labour Council leadership decided to delay its sale until after the elections.
In total the Council owns 110,877 square metres of unused land.
Release of some of the land would go some way towards reducing housing pressures in the City while helping those who are campaigning to preserve the City’s Green Belt.
28,153 drivers apply for Lendal Bridge refunds
Only 3 from non UK residents
The York Council has responded to a Freedom of Information request about the progress made in offering refunds to drivers who were fined for driving over Lendal Bridge.
The Council decided, after pressure for opposition parties, to write to all affected drivers telling them of the process for claiming refunds.
The refunds were offered after the traffic adjudicator ruled in 2014 that the Council had acted unlawfully.
The Council has now confirmed that 27,181 letters were sent to drivers on 13th February.
In total 28,153 applications for refunds have been made although this figure does include some duplicates.
Since the decision to send out the letters a total of £334,921 has been refunded.
The Council has broken down into the postcode of the applicant the refund applications which have so far been successful
- YO postcodes account for 3,506
- The rest of the UK 15,782
- Only 3 appear to have originated outside the UK
Taking into account the refunds made last year, a total of £689,531 has so far been refunded.
At the March 2014 Council meeting the Cllr Merrett, who then was responsible for the trial closures on Lendal Bridge and Coppergate, admitted that over £2 million had been raised in fine income.
With the Council now having been judged to have acted unlawfully on Coppergate as well as Lendal Bridge, it seems likely that further tranche of letters will shortly be going out advising more drivers of their right to a refund.
Commenting former Council Leader Steve Galloway, who submitted the Freedom on of Information request, said,
“Clearly many thousands of drivers did not know about their right to a refund.
Opposition Councillors have been vindicated for their decision to ask that all drivers be notified by letter of the refund process.
It is unfortunate that so few foreign visitors have responded to the letter. This rather suggests that the reputational cost of this project failure may be with us for several more years
I hope that the Council will act quickly to refund fines levied on Coppergate and will be more circumspect in future when rolling out new technology like ANPR cameras”
Fire in Dringhouses
At 12:50am on Wednesday 29 April, police attended a serious fire in flats on North Lane, off Thanet Road, in Dringhouses, York.
The emergency services were alerted by a call from a member of the public. The flats were evacuated however a man in his thirties was taken to York District Hospital where he was sadly pronounced dead.
The police and fire services are making enquiries to establish the cause of the fire, which is at this time unexplained.
Anyone who has information related to the fire is asked to contact police to assist enquiries. Dial 101, press option 2 and ask for York CID, quoting ref NYP-29042015-0013.
Labour cut number of staff working on highways repairs by 39%
The number of Council staff working on repairing York’s footpaths and roads has dropped from 59 in 2011 to 35 today. Some of the work is, of course, undertaken by contractors.
The cuts reflect a 25% reduction in the investment being made in resurfacing the City’s highways.
During 2012 and 2013 the Labour administration cut highways repairs expenditure by around 50%. It is still not back to the level that they inherited from the last LibDem administration in 2011.
The highways repairs budget is down from £5.1 million in 2011 to only £3.8 million for 2015.
There have, however, been increases in the amounts being spent on street lighting and drainage.
Expenditure of £1.2 million on new street lights in 2012, however, did not produce the savings in running costs – or reliability – that were expected.
The day to day running costs of lighting actually increased in 2013, while fault reports also remain high.
A copy of the spreadsheet, which also details the mileage of road that has been resurfaced each year, can be found by clicking here.
Road safety initiative
Road safety experts from City of York Council are joining fellow officers to raise the profile of road safety among children during Global Road Safety Week (GRSW) between 4-10 May.
Parents, teachers and other interested parties are being invited to submit questions for a series of online forums covering child road safety issues, which will be held on the Road Safety GB website during the weeklong event.
The four forums are free of charge and cover children as pedestrians, as cyclists, travelling in cars, and how to set up and run a Junior Road Safety Officer scheme, and will be held daily on Tuesday 5 to Friday 8 May inclusive, between 12 – 1pm.
Trish Hirst and Lynne Thomas, both road safety officers from City of York Council, will be joining the London Borough of Hackney Council for the first forum on Tuesday 5 May to discuss ‘children and cycling’.
Questions can be submitted in advance or during the forum itself, and the panel of road safety expert facilitators will answer in ‘real time’ during the forum.
Trish Hirst, Road Safety Manager at City of York Council, said: “York is one of the top cycling cities in the UK, so we are proud to take part in this national forum to offer advice on children cycling. In recent years we’ve seen a huge increase in young people cycling, which is fantastic, but it’s also just as important that we provide practical information and advice too. We hope this forum will help many people and we encourage everyone to tune in!”
Road safety professionals and other stakeholders are being encouraged to alert schools and other groups in their local areas, in order to give teachers, parents and others the opportunity to participate in the forums.
The forums are part of a comprehensive suite of initiatives here in the UK in support of GRSW 2015. Other initiatives include:
- A series of child road safety resources – including activity sheets, maps and country profilers – which are available free to download.
- A series of simple ‘how to’ guides to help educators and others teach basic road safety to children. The guides cover children as pedestrians, cyclists, travelling in cars and on public transport, and setting up a Junior Road Safety Officer scheme.
- A database of road safety professionals with expertise with regard to child road safety, who are willing to provide advice and support to people in other parts of the world.
Find out more about road safety in York by visiting www.itravelyork.info .
The full online forum programme is as follows:
- Tuesday 5 May – Children and cycling (featuring City of York Council officers)
- Wednesday 6 May – Setting up and running a Junior Road Safety Officer scheme
- Thursday 7 May – In-car safety for children
- Friday 8 May – Children as pedestrians
Find out more at: www.roadsafetygb.org.uk/pages/roadsafetyweek/rsw-forums.html