Toy bus decision to be challenged

toybus

A decision to scrap a mobile toy-lending service used by over 500 families has been challenged by York’s Liberal Democrat Group.

Last week the Labour Cabinet Member for Education, Children and Young People decided to end the council-run Toy Bus. The decision was taken despite officers admitting that they had “no detail” on what will replace the service and fresh statistics which show that 512 families were using the Bus. The decision to scrap the provision, which will save the council just £14,000 a year, was originally due to come into effect in 2014/15, but last week’s judgment means it is now due to formally end immediately.

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York Council Taxpayers face immediate £400,000 bill for Labour’s Guildhall plan

York Guildhall

York Guildhall

Labour are oppressing ahead with their plan to turn the Guildhall into a “Digital Arts and Media Centre”.

Essentially this will mean constructing small business units.

Initially around £400,000 is being spent appointing additional staff to manage the project and to undertake demolition works on parts of the site. In total £1.4 million has been allocated to the project plus an – as yet unspecified – amount of capital investment (likely to be several millions of pounds)

The Council has still not published even an outline business case indicating how such a development could be paid for and sustained.

There is still a large amount of empty commercial property in the City. There are at the moment, for example, 11 starter units unoccupied at the York Eco Business centre at Clifton

The original intention had been to maintain the Guildhall and adjacent heritage buildings as the political and cultural centre of the City. This would have left space at the new West Offices for commercial use.

This has already been eroded.

A commercial use is taking place in part of the building (John Lewis recruitment) while – ironically – another part of the site is being used by the theatre group which is behind the “Arts Barge” project.

The Council has not revealed how much rent it is receiving for these uses or what the ongoing maintenance and other liabilities are for the largely empty site. Earlier in the year the empty building was reported as costing Taxpayers around £13000 a month

Most seriously it looks like it will be at least a year before a permanent use is found for the buildings.

In the meantime, part of the site has been mothballed prior to demolition while it seems likely that the rest of this key building will be allowed to quietly rot away.

“Taxi for James” as York Council credit card used to fund £180 pedicure

pedicure-large

The Sunday Times is reporting today that a York Council credit card has been used to pay for a £180 pedicure.

Apparently the money was spent on the feet of “disadvantaged” youngsters to improve their “self esteem”

Meanwhile James Alexander has published more details of his travel expenses.

They include a £12 taxi ride to Terry’s to take part in a “photo shoot”.

Residents living in the Bishopthorpe Road area may feel that use of a bus would have been more appropriate.

Taxpayers living in the rest of the City might tell the Leader to follow the example of his predecessors and use some of his £30,000 a year salary to fund trips within the City.

Horses United 1 Dog & Cat Rovers 0

horse dog

Coming soon after the Council announced that it would be scrapping the specialist animal welfare (formerly dog warden) officer patrols, it has decided to appoint a “horse bailiff”.

The move comes after numerous complaints about horses straying onto private land and being the cause of several road traffic accidents.

The Cabinet is set to approve a “protocol” next week

The plan will cost Council tax payers £40,000 a year to implement

Labour back down on Green Bin Tax – but second bins will cost £35 to empty!

The Liberal Democrat campaign to stop Labour introducing a charge for emptying green bins has been successful.

A report to the Councils Cabinet says that there will be no charge for emptying one bin at each property.

Green bin petition

However the service will not be available between November and March (when less than 17% of green waste is collected). The Council hopes to save around £67,000 by discontinuing this part of the service.

A survey undertaken by the Council revealed that only 14.5% support a charge. That compares to 96% who responded to our survey in the Westfield area who were opposed to a charge.

There are over 5000 additional green bins in use at properties with large gardens. The Council hopes that around 3500 residents will pay £35 a year to have these second bins emptied.

The majority of respondents to the Councils survey supported having a combined food and green waste collection. In other parts of the country this has reduced landfill volumes by 15% and officers are to look further at how this could be introduced in York.

The Council is also to close the Towthorpe recycling centre on one day a week. It appears that they have still not learnt the lesson that closing the Beckfield Lane centre should have taught them (inconvenience means increased landfill volumes).

The Council claim that their online/telephone survey attracted about 1000 responses.

It was attacked as misleading as it failed to explain that changes to the current arrangements would have been unnecessary if the Council had decided to scrap some of its more extravagant plans like establishing an “arts barge” on the Ouse.

York’s Labour Council approves massive cuts to public services

Although only 24 Labour Councillors voted for the cuts budget proposed by their leadership it was enough to see the proposals passed at last nights Council meeting.

Library budget cut by £450,000. Future uncertain

Library budget cut by £450,000. Future uncertain

Now residents face a lethal cocktail of higher Council Tax levels, higher charges and rapidly deteriorating street level public services.

One local Councillor deliberately snubbed the many local residents who have been campaigning against the introduction of a 20 mph speed limit across the area. The cost of introducing the new limit is put at £600,000. He claimed in the media that it would “reduce accidents”. In reality in places like Portsmouth the introduction of such a limit has coincided with an increase in accident levels.

Both Dringhouses Labour Councillors then voted to reduce expenditure on road safety improvements by £75,000!

Liberal Democrat Councillor Ann Reid said, “Labour’s cuts to the roads budget have hit home in recent months with officers admitting that due to the sheer volume of problems they are being forced into ‘quick fix’ and temporary solutions. It is only through prudent long-term investment that we can reverse this decline. Our £500,000 package would not only help residents, but also local businesses and economic development. While Labour throws £100,000 at an Arts Barge and gives a £1million unmonitored ‘slush fund’ to the Council Leader, the Liberal Democrats would invest in the roads and frontline services

Budget

We are just one week
from Budget day, and I need your help.

As you may have seen in Nick Clegg’s excellent PMQs today, Liberal Democrats in
Government are fighting to make sure this Budget will deliver major changes to
our tax system; putting money back in your pocket and making the richest pay
more.

And we need to spread the word. Let
us know what you’d do
with an extra £60 in your wages every month, share it
with your friends and also see how many people in your area will benefit.
 
Let’s deliver real tax cuts for the hard working people in Britain who are
playing by the rules, and call time on Gordon Brown’s tax-dodger charter.
 
Did you know hundreds of people with seven-figure incomes are using armies of
accountants to avoid billions of pounds in taxes? Tycoons should no longer be
allowed to get away with it.
 
It’s time for a Budget for the millions, not millionaires. And one that will repair
the damage caused to our economy by Labour.
 
Remember, Liberal Democrats have already made sure 900,000 pensioners and low
paid workers have been lifted out of income tax all together, and 23million
people have been given a tax cut. But it is time to go further and faster.
 
Tell us what you’d do with your tax cut and see how many people in your area it
would help:
 
www.60pounds.org

The Liberal Democrat Budget 2010/11

On Tuesday the Liberal Democrat Council Executive agreed its budget proposals for 2010/11. The budget is designed to help prepare York for the economic recovery, while ensuring investment in vital services such as adult and children’s social care.

In preparing our budget we were also very keen to ensure we responded to the city wide budget consultation which went out in December.

Some of the budget highlights include:

Transport: To help boost the city centre, economy car parking charges will be frozen as will Park and Ride charges. Everyone except the owners of the most polluting vehicles will see ResPark charges frozen while charges for visitors to ResPark areas will be cut from £1.10 to 90p.

There will be more congestion busting improvements to the outer ring road. Following the completion of improvements to the Hopgrove roundabout there will be improvements to the A19 and A59 roundabouts.

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