£89,000 spent on Christmas lights but no Christmas tree collection in York this year

Anyone buying a Christmas tree this year faces a trip to the recycling centre in January.

treeturnercopy1

Alternatively the Council say you should “replant the tree in your garden”.

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.

LibDems back York community centres

Foxwood Community Centre

Foxwood Community Centre

Liberal Democrats are calling on Labour run City of York Council to cancel planned cuts to community centre grants.

 

In recent weeks Foxwood, Chapelfields and Oaken Grove centres have all warned they could face closure or be forced to scale back activities as they are set to lose their grants from York Council.

 

At next week’s Full Council meeting the Lib Dem Group Leader, Cllr Keith Aspden, will challenge the Labour Cabinet to address these concerns.

 

He is calling for the second year of planned funding cuts, due to be rubber-stamped in February for Labour’s 2014/15 Budget, to be scrapped.

 
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Action to improve service standards in Chaloners area

Fly tipping

Fly tipping

Tree detritus on Chaloners Road

Tree detritus on Chaloners Road

Damaged verges

Damaged verges

Dog fouling on snickets

Dog fouling on snickets

Leeside footpath crumbling

Leeside footpath crumbling

North Lane pothole

North Lane pothole

Following a growth in complains about public service standards in part of Dringhouses a major push for improvements has started.

Ann Reid and the Liberal Democrat team have been out and about and have reported over 20 issues for Council attention.

Let us know if you have similar problems in your area.

The major problems concerned, dumping, dog fouling, vandalism, potholes, damaged signs and weed growth

Chaloners Crescent trolley

Attendance at Dringhouses library falls

Overall use of York’s libraries fell by over 3000 last year.

click to enlarge

click to enlarge

However just over 1 million visits were recorded which is still above the average for City’s of a similar size.

Every Library in the City except Fulford showed a reduction.

The overall fall would have been even greater had it not been for the newly opened Rowntree Park library which attracted nearly 50,000 users. However the new library depended on a large number of special events to attract visitors and it is too early to judge its long term attractiveness.

Acomb Explore Library

Acomb Explore Library

It appears that the Council has taken its eye off the ball recently with the controversial plan to privatise the library service having apparently affected staff morale while at the same time monopolising senior management time.

Even Labour Party supporters are unhappy with this plan with one member taking the opportunity to speak against the proposals at the last Council meeting.

The concern is that Labour are trying to distance themselves from the library service before reducing the subsidy available (and thereby forcing closures).

The largest drop in numbers was at the Acomb Library. This may be because special events – such as evenings with prominent authors – have been fewer in number recently.

A plan to locate Council customer facing staff from the housing and neighbourhood teams at the library was scrapped by Labour when they took office in 2011. This made it more difficult for the building to become the “hub” for activities in the Acomb area.

Small Changes, Big Savings – Acomb Explore money event on Monday 14th October,

People across York are being invited to boost their financial know-how in a series of events designed to help people make savings, get more out of the internet and make the banks work better for them.

A series of seven Small Changes, Big Savings sessions are being held at different venues across the city during York’s Housing Week, from 14-18 October, which is looking at ways to overcome poverty.

The ‘Small Changes, Big Savings’ events held across the city will be at:

• •Acomb Explore on Monday 14 October, 9:30-11:30am •

•Bell Farm Social Hall on Tuesday 15 October, 10am-12 noon when we’ll be launching our anti loan shark charter

• •Clements Hall on 15 October 1:30-3:30pm;

• •Sanderson Court on Wednesday 16 October, 9:30-11:30am

• •Foxwood Community Centre on Thursday 17 October, 9:30-11am

• •Tang Hall on 17 October, 2-4pm

• •Burton Stone Community Centre, on Friday 18 October, 1-3pm.

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Residents survey cites poor highway maintenance as York’s biggest public service problem.

York residents survey results click to enlarge

York residents survey results click to enlarge

A survey completed by over 400 residents living in the west of York has revealed that highways and footpath maintenance are now the biggest cause for complaint.

73% thought that road and footpath maintenance had got worse in the City over the last 2 years.

The service was followed closely by ice clearance which 69% thought had got worse.

This is bad news for the Labour Council as the response come before the latest set of cuts to winter maintenance are implemented.

Parking provision was criticised by 65% with the large increases in parking charges introduced by the Labour Council likely to be the main influencing factor.

More than 50% of respondents also thought that litter, control of dogs, refuse collection and weed removal had got worse.

Only crime prevention fared relatively well, with 66% saying that the quality of the service was unchanged

The survey results will add pressure on the Council to support additional investment in street level public services at its meeting on Thursday.

Street level public service standards – plea to York Council next Thursday.

The York Council at a meeting next week will be asked to jettison its prestige expenditure plans and return to a more sensible economic policy.

Weeds need strimming at end of Ridgeway

Weeds need strimming at end of Ridgeway

A motion being put forward by the Liberal Democrats condemns deteriorating roads, footpaths and increasing litter as well as plans to reduce de icing services in winter.

It says that Labour’s decision to scrap the “York Pride” maintenance programmes means that many areas are now strewn with weeds and detritus.

Carriageway failed in Vesper Drive

Carriageway failed in Vesper Drive

Recent rain highlighted the impact that Labours decision to end the routine cleaning of gullies (road drains) is already having.

Meanwhile a rather disingenuous motion from Labour Cllr Burton, seeks to justify the bill for York staging the start of just one Tour de France stage.

The cost to taxpayers is already in excess of £1.5 million and rising.

The Labour backed motion says that any income to the Council from the event should be allocate to improve basic service standards.

It fails however to say that the income from a few hot dog stands is unlikely to make much difference.

The cost of the repairs back log on the City’s roads and footpaths alone now stands at over £20 million.

The Liberal Democrat motion reads
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shop4support York website questioned

Residents accessing a new York web site have questioned the York Councils role in the initiative.

Although available since May, the shop4support site has had little publicity and there is no explanation on the site of the Councils role or the standing of the site.

click to access site

click to access site

It appears to advertise services for disadvantaged people in the City but representatives of some voluntary organisations say they have only just found out about its existence.

It appears that the site is aimed at personal budget holders – residents who have opted to manage their own social care needs from a budget allocated by the local authority. This is a growing number of people in York where the number of direct payment holders has increased from 99 in 2008 to around 300 today. In addition many elderly people also chose now to arrange their own care.

The web page is clearly marked as being a City of York Council supported initiative, but there is no record of the Council having formally discussed its involvement. No Council contact telephone number is advertised on the site. There is no link to the site from the Council’s own web page.

Many of the services offered involve a payment. Although some of the advertisers are voluntary groups, there are others which appear to have a more commercial background.

Elsewhere on the web site, Councils are being offered the chance to get join the network in return for a payment of “from £45,000”.

Questions about the Councils involvement with the web site are likely to be asked at the next Council meeting which is taking place on 10th October.

Social care costs in York click to enlarge

Social care costs in York click to enlarge

York Council call centre customers face 20 minute wait

Figures for August released today by the Council will confirm many residents experiences.

The time being taken by the Council to answer telephone calls is ridiculously high.

West Offices

In some cases, residents have had to wait for 20 minutes for their call to be answered.

Many Councils routinely publish on their web site quality of service stats covering basic services such as the time taken to deal with issues. The York Council fails to do so.

In response to a Freedom of Information request, the Council has now admitted that the maximum time that telephone callers had to wait, during the week commencing 5th August, was:

Between 8:00am and 9:00am 3:52 mins (maximum waiting time for call to be answered)

9am-10am 11:30 mins

10am-11am 09:22 mins

11am-12am 08:34 mins

12am -1pm 12:32 mins

1pm -2 pm 11:56 mins

2 pm-3pm 20:22 mins

3pm -4pm 10:27 mins

4pm -5 pm 10:03 mins

5pm -5:30pm 16:21 mins

The failures have prompted calls for the switchboard to remain open for an additional hour to deal with the backlog.

It is likely that many callers will have abandoned their attempts to get through.

The figures suggest that the quality of service being provided by the Council has declined since it moved into its new “state of the art” West Office building

Friday 13th – Looking unlucky for York Council as traffic congestion and un-emptied bin problems mount

The Council’s web site crashed for a short time as problems with traffic congestion and un-emptied waste bins mount.

Click to update

Click to update

A combination of the Lendal Bridge closure, poor weather and high traffic volumes is causing mounting delays on the northern by pass and the inner ring road.

Further congestion is expected tomorrow as the City hosts the “skyride”.

Meanwhile the backlog in emptying waste bins shows little sign of subsiding. There is talk of working on Saturday to address the backlog but how residents will be made aware of such a decision remains a mystery.

The local media have been strangely reluctant to report the scale of the problem pausing only to remind residents to put their bin out by 0700 hours – pretty much futile if the bins aren’t cleared for over 24 hours.

The Council is now saying “ on Friday 13th September some properties in the following streets did not have their garden waste collected as scheduled:

Poppleton – Streets and all streets off

• Station Road
• Longridge Lane
• Black Dykes Lane
• Main Street
• Ebor Way
• Montague Road
• Millfield Lane
• Beech Grove
• Westfield Close
• Willow Croft
• Hodgeson Lane
• The Green

Clifton – Streets and all streets off• Shipton Road
• Malton Way
• Brompton Road
• Rawcliffe Lane (part)
• Surray Way
• Filingsdale Road
• Eastholme Drive
• Northolme Drive
• Southolme Drive
• Westholme Drive
• Grasmere Grove
• Borrowdale Drive
• Westmore Drive
• Alwyne Drive
• Alwyne Grove
• Westholme Drive
• Potterdale Drive

Rawcliffe – Streets and all streets off• Bowness Drive
• Furness Drive
• Howard Drive
• Troutsdale Avenue
• Stainsdale Close
• St Marks Grove
• Bilsdale Close
• Manor Park Road
• Manor Way
• Rawcliffe Croft
• Eva Avenue
• Manor Lane
• Cobham Way
• Armstrong Way
• Conningham Avenue
• Village Street

We will return to these properties to make collections on Saturday 14th September. Please ensure that your bin is out by 7am as the crews will be returning early in the morning.