Local volunteers will carry out a ‘spring clean’ of the city during March and April.
Volunteers in action in the Foxwood Park earlier in the year
The spring clean will consist of various tasks, such as litter clearance, edging off grass verges, cutting back over grown vegetation and fence repairs.
From 24 – 30 March the team will be focusing on the Dringhouses and Woodthorpe ward, where they will be looking to make a difference to Chapman’s Pond and Foxwood Park making site improvements with help from Bootham School and local groups on March 26.
The Friends of Acomb Wood invite people to help plant new trees on March 27.
Volunteers are being called upon to help spruce up Nelsons Lane play are on March 25.
York residents will also have the opportunity to nominate communal spaces for the team to spruce up and help make a smarter York.
This can be done by going to https://www.york.gov.uk/springclean and adding a new request. Residents and businesses can also volunteer to carry out tasks in their local area.
The Council is to introduce what they describe as a “new” policy on litter. Details click here
In reality most of the policy is little different from that which was implemented over a decade ago.
Mechanisation has increased the areas that can be swept – particularly in the City centre – but in sub-urban areas litter has been a growing problem since bins were removed a couple of years ago.
The “policy” makes no mention of dog fouling – again a problem that has been on the increase since the Dog Wardens were cut. More joint use litter/poop scoop bins are, however, promised.
Other essential street level posts have been cut leaving York’s front line dangerously undermanned.
The effective, and much missed, Street Environment Officers have now gone to be replaced by an, improbably named, “Smarter York Officer”.
Once again the emphasis is on forcing residents to undertake work previously done by the Council.
“Spring cleans” are promised but not in areas like the Cornlands estate where standards are now very poor.
Residents will want to be sure that their taxes are being spent wisely.
They expect to see performance measures, clear targets and a real on the ground improvement plan.
Sadly that is not part of the agenda for York’s Labour Council.
It looks like the decision made by the Council to scrap the dog warden (animal welfare) service has backfired.
Complaints about dog fouling have been increasing but it seems that many do go unreported.
The number of fines issued has steadily decreased.
Now there is likely to be a move to reintroduce the dog warden service when the York Council debates its budget plans for the forthcoming year on 27th February.
Action to prevent parking on the footway adjacent to the zebra crossing at 197 – 215 Huntington Road. Option A – Agreed to advertise a proposal to prohibit waiting on the verge/footway for the full length of the zig-zag carriageway marking with limited parking for the lay-by area.
The best indicator remains the real time CCTV camera which records river levels on Kings Staith.
There is a significant risk If the top of the no entry sign disappears under water!
The devastation caused by flooding in other parts of the country is likely to reopen the debate about whether the river Ouse should be dredged.
Although dredging might increase the river capacity (and speed) where the work could be completed there would be other implications. Not least amongst these are the fact that more water would arrive in greater volumes at vulnerable downstream locations.
Potentially this could mean more, rather than fewer, homes being flooded. There are also concerns about the impact that dredging can have on the foundations of bridges. on river banks and on wildlife habitats.
The policy introduced a few years ago – of planting near the upper reaches of rivers to help control the speed that water runs off the land – has merit, while the York Council is rightly making provision, in its forward budgets, for the improvement and maintenance of water courses.
Nevertheless the dredging arguments do now need to be revisited and we would like to see a committee set up to publicly consider all the issues involved.
They are right to do so but, in pointing to improvements planned for Exhibition Square, Blake Street and Fossgate, they lamentably fail to answer the question that will be on every taxpayer’s lips.
How much will these paving schemes cost?
There is little new in the leaflet. The Labour Council changed the Council’s forward programme in 2011 putting the modernisation of Kings Square ahead of the Fossgate pedestrianisation scheme which had been set to go ahead in 2012.
Next in line were to have been improvements to Duncombe Place, which could have provided a large and useful pedestrian precinct.
But the Councils increasing financial problems meant that progress would inevitably have slowed.
Residents might usefully have been asked when completing the “on line” survey whether they want any of these schemes to go ahead or whether the money might be better spent repairing the roads in sub-urban areas?
The danger in the Councils approach is that the improvement of the City centre may become politically toxic.
Against a background of plans for a further £1 million cut in road maintenance in sub-urban areas, residents are likely to demand of Council candidates – at the next local elections in 2015 – a commitment to improving public service standards in residential areas.
The City centre may find that its share of available resources is reduced.
In previous years, Christmas trees have been collected from peoples homes when green bins were emptied. The Labour Council has, of course, scrapped the green bin collections, so we guess that some trees will end up dumped in hedgerows around the City.
Any trees which are returned to recycling centres will be turned into compost.
The Council has, however, found £89,000 during the last 2 years to spend on Christmas decorations in the City centre.
The decorations can be seen in Parliament Street, Davygate, Coney Street, St Helen’s Square, Stonegate and Micklegate.
Lamp post lighting is at Station Rise, Bridge Street, Lendal Bridge and Museum Street.
Mini Christmas trees are also installed in some of these streets as well as the Shambles and Goodramgate.
Traders in sub-urban locations have, however, lost out again.
Unlike previous years, the Council is not offering “free parking” on any day or evening in the run up to Christmas.
The Park & Ride service is operating without charge on Boxing Day from 3 sites.
Most of the Park and Ride buses operating yesterday evening – during the extended shopping period in the City Centre – were running empty.
The York Council is handing over the running of its public conveniences to a private contractor.
A standard charge of 40p will be made to users. The contractor will be able to increase the charge by 10p per annum.
The news is not particularly surprising although the scale of the charge is.
Visitors already tortured by traffic restriction fines now face another form of discomfort. The vendetta follows on from the high profile persecution of those “caught short”.
The Council hopes to save £75,000 a year from the charge. In return it promises a £663,000 refurbishment programme including £33,000 to be spent on the Front Street Acomb toilets.
All toilets will have unisex cubicles and have baby change facilities. Accessibility will be greatly improved with all facilities having alarm cords for disabled users connected to a 24-hour helpline and there will be 24-hour access to all toilets. This will be controlled by gates operated by payment of a 40p fee – what is already being charged at Silver Street – while disabled users are can continue to use RADAR keys for no charge.
Nine public conveniences will be provide under the new arrangements. The nine are located at:
Acomb, Front Street
Haxby, Main Street
Coppergate
Exhibition Square
Nunnery Lane CP
Silver Street
St George’s Field CP
Tanner Row
Union Terrace
Other public conveniences will close
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York marathon faces sprint rival
A new York Sprint race is to be held next summer for the first time. The event will aim to find the fastest visitor to the City.
Entrants will be asked to drink 3 pints of lager and will then be given a map of the Councils new network of public conveniences. Contestants will then race to the nearest site.
In line with the publicity for the Lendal bridge closure, recommended routes to the loos will be marked out making full use of the northern by pass.
On arrival 50% of the conveniences will be closed for cleaning.
CCTV cameras will be strapped to the back of each contestant to ensure that they do not cheat.
The entry fee for the contest will be 40p Multiple entries are allowed but will be charged separately.
Entry forms will be available on the Council web site shortly.
NB. The event has no connection with the “brass monkeys” race although the consequences could be similar.
One of York’s renowned City Sight Seeing buses will become the first double-decker bus in the country to get an electric makeover, thanks to a grant made by the Coalition government.
Reliance buses will also benefit from the same pot of funding, with the installation of new exhausts that will help reduce poor emissions in the city.
Details of the supplementary allocation were released 3 weeks ago.
A City Sight Seeing bus, operated by Transdev will become the first double decker in the UK to be converted from diesel to pure electric with lithium ion batteries, similar to those used by mobile phones.
Converting from diesel to electric will have substantial benefits for air quality as the bus is used intensively in the city centre. The cost of the conversion will be £75k, but will save an estimated £15k a year in fuel costs.
The remaining DfT funding will be used to retrofit two diesel buses operated by Reliance, along the A19 route,with Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) exhaust technology which reduces emissions of small particles.
