British Sugar site development – Supermarket announcement premature.

According to information provided at the York Council meeting on Thursday, it appears that no decision has been made on the size of any supermarket which may be built on the British Sugar site off Boroughbridge Road.

British Sugar site

On November Council Leader James Alexander announced in the media that a large supermarket would form part of the development.

The publication of consultation plans a few days later showed no large store prompting concerns that the location of the “community hub” would be prejudiced by the extra traffic flow that such a store might generate.

Now it appear that , although a Tesco Express style “corner” store (with around 200 sq metres of floor space) was expected – and needed for the 1000 home development – no proposals for s superstore have actually been made.

A superstore can have a floor space of around 2000 sq metres.

On Thursday the Council Leader admitted that his comments had been premature.

Answering a question from Liberal Democrat Councillor Ann Reid, about the size and impact of a supermarket, he said,

“The quote from The Press was referring to a sentence in my speech given at the annual business conference. The sentence was “The site is likely to include a new supermarket, further boosting employment prospects”.

There has been interest expressed for a new supermarket in this locality but no deal is yet complete. Consultation will take place once there are firmer proposals.

More and more residents contacting the York Council – Smarter York “App” fails

 

Lunched amidst a blaze of publicity 18 months ago an “App”, that was supposed to transform the way that residents communicate with the Council, has flopped.

Council Leaders in London looking for an "App" 2 years ago.

Council Leaders in London looking for an “App” 2 years ago.

The Smarter York mobile phone “App” allowed residents to report an incident – including a photo – straight into the Councils contact handing system. The “App” cost £8000 to develop.

It ran into problems with the Data Protection Act in October of last year

Now figures released by the Council have revealed that only 200 reports were made using the “App” between April and September 2013.

That is only 0.07% of the total number of contacts from York residents.

Last year 321 residents used the system during the equivalent period.

Many of the reports are understood to have been made by Council staff during the course of their normal duties.

During the same 6 month period, other residents used the following channels to contact the Council.

  • Telephone 183,385 (2012 – 140,851)
  • Personal visit 60,841 (36,528)
  • Email: 32,106 (22,034)
  • “Do it on line” (council web site) – 7848 (7778)

The figures show a 37% increase in the number of customers contacting the York Council this year.

This will be deeply worrying for the Council, Leadership who anticipated that changing customer preferences would see a big shift to using electronic means to contact the Council.

Electronic transactions cost a fraction of the expense incurred in dealing with personal callers.

The whole business case for the new Council HQ was based on assumption that heavy investment in state of the art IT facilities would reduce day to day running costs for the Council.

This appears so far not to be the case.

The period covered was a time when residents were besieging the Council with complaints about revised bin emptying arrangements and new traffic restrictions in the City centre.

Meanwhile the Smarter York App needs to be upgraded to cover more public service areas.

In that respect at least, it has fallen far behind proprietary web based reporting tools such as “My Council” and “Fix my Street”.

York Family Information Service wins award

York Family Information Service (FIS) has scooped a national quality award.

The team, which supports parents and carers across the city of children aged between 0-19 (and up to 25 years of age for young people with disabilities) has been awarded the National Association of Families Information Services (NAFIS) Family First Award for quality.
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£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.

York primary schools performance results

York primary schools have produced only average results in performance comparisons published today.

The results are based on the number of pupils achieving “good” level 4 in reading, writing and maths.

The highest performing schools in York were Naburn CE and St Mary’s CE both of which achieved 100%

Lowest performing school was Derwent which achieved 38%

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Other results included:

  • Acomb Primary 86%
  • Hob Moor 86%
  • Woodthorpe 79%
  • Westfield 76%
  • Our Lady’s 75%
  • Dringhouses 63%

A full list can be found by clicking here

Potential owners reject aggressive dog breeds in York

A dog is for life not just Christmas

christmas_dog

Several families will be giving or receiving dogs this Christmas.

New figures published by the York Council – together with the alarming dog attack in Leeds – should provide food for thought.

In response to a Freedom of Information request, the Council has revealed that over the last 12 months it has collected on average 1 dog per day Monday to Friday (there is no weekend service).

Over 50 % of dogs are returned to the owners.

In the period January to September 2013 on average 1 dog a month was destroyed 2 because of very old age / ill health meaning that it could not be re-homed.

7 were of a breed (Staffy / Staffy cross) that no carer was prepared to take.

Kenneling stray dogs costs about £30,000 a year in York

Those dogs who are re-homed go to a mix of national charities or specialist breed rescue centres for further re-homing or long term care, or to individuals / families for permanent adoption.

Many charities are looking for good homes for dogs and cats that they receive during the festive period.

Click below for links.

Council Leadership rebuffed over plan to censor residents comments.

The proposed restrictions, on residents wishing to address Council meetings, have been rejected by the Councils Audit Committee tonight.

 

So what next? A return to factual Council reports and free debate?

Probably not!

Residents anger over todays Library closures

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click to enlarge

The York Council is being heavily criticised by residents for not notifying local media about today’s library closures.

Although the closure – which is allowing staff to have a conference about the pending privatisation of the service – is mentioned on the Councils web site, many users have not noticed it.

Some are obviously seething after wasted journeys.

They are venting their disappointment by writing advice about good communications on the closure notice that has been posted on the library door today.

The privatisation move – which we believe does not enjoy widespread support either from staff or customers – is the brainchild of Cllr Crisp. Her report to tomorrows Council meeting also pointedly omits to mentions todays closures.

NB. User numbers at 14 of York’s 15 libraries has reduced since Cllr Crisp took responsibility for them.

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The Council is also saying that its electronic “report it” system may not be working this week.