We don’t believe that bus service quality standards in York are as poor as some would like to make out.

However an insight into the secretive world of York politics came at the last Council meeting which might raise concerns.

A reasonable question had been tabled to Dave Merrett a Labour Councillor who is responsible for public transport policy in the City. The interchange went like this:

“At the October Council meeting the Cabinet Member agreed to “look into” publishing reliability information provided by those bus operators providing services under Council contracts, as well as asking the bus operators to authorise the Council to publish the number of “All York” tickets sold each month. What progress has been made and where can bus passengers in York now access reliability information for the services that they use?” from Cllr Reid

Answer
This is a commercial product of the operators. It is commercial data that belongs to the operators and the operators view is that this is commercially sensitive information. Its disclosure could have a negative impact on both the future development of all York products and on general operations. With regard to reliability data, the Council receives real time reliability data which it uses to inform highway improvements and bus service planning. Provision of the data to the Council by operators is on the basis of a data sharing agreement which restricts the Council from publishing the data on a route by route basis. The Council does, however, annually publish reliability data for the whole York bus network and this is available from the Department for Transport. (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/quarterly-bus-statistics-quarter-2-2012

So is Cllr Merrett in favour of publishing bus reliability information in a way that is both useful and accessible?

Who knows from this answer?

The fact that he abandoned all independent quality checks, of bus service reliability, when he took office 19 months ago, suggests that either he didn’t want to know how efficient the local bus services were, or he didn’t want passengers to find out.

……..and does he know how many “All York” tickets have been sold? The Council taxpayer clearly has an interest here as £20,000 of York resident’s money was used to publicise the scheme (Basically we know that sales of the ticket have been very small).

The solution is simple. If the bus companies still refuse to publish quality of service information then no further taxpayers subsidies, or service contracts, should be authorised for companies that do not agree to release reliability data.

There are £800,000 worth of contracts coming up for renewal shortly.

Time to give some support to bus passengers in the City we think.

NB. Park and Ride bus fares are set to increase on 6th January 2013. The new charges are:
Single – £2 (unchanged)
Return now £2.60
Concessionary Single – 60p* (unchanged)

MinsterCard tickets:

Stored value return now £2.30
Weekly ticket now £10.40
Monthly ticket now £41.60
Annual ticket now £416.00

*available after 0900 Monday-Friday and all day weekends & bank holidays to holders of a valid concessionary pass

The Labour Council “Cabinet” has confirmed that it is still considering introducing a charge for the emptying of green waste bins.

However the decision has slipped once again – this time to their February meeting.

In effect this means that they cannot introduce charges during the current financial year. In turn this could mean that a hole will appear in their budget and will raise concerns that even higher charges for some services will be implemented next year.

The Council are still promising to consult on their plans using the internet. When they intend to do so remains a mystery.

This what Labour have done in Sheffield where they have also privatised waste collection. https://www.sheffield.gov.uk/environment/waste/bincollections/greenbins.html

All York Council departments missed their target of dealing with residents complaints within 5 working days between September and November.

43 complainants were recorded as “not satisfied” and went on to record a “stage 2” complaint.

A further 3 complaints reached the highest “stage 3” level.

The Council have admitted that very little existing furniture will be moved to their offices at Toft Green.

Instead a contract has been let which will see some of the furniture refurbished and resold, some donated to charity and some dumped.

The value of the contract has not been disclosed.

Council officials who work from home will get first choice of redundant desks and seats.

The Council have also admitted that nearly £1 million will be spent on new furniture at the new HQ. Expenditure includes the purchase of 2507 new seats. These are described as:
• 1,160 task chairs (for sitting at desks)
• 793 for Customer Centre and Meeting Rooms
• 153 Cafe
• 401 soft seating including sofas (sofas counted as one seat regardless of size)

Although the building will be home to 1400 staff, fewer than 1000 are expected to be in the building at any one time. “Hot desking” (using any free desk) will be standard practice for all staff.

No formal opening date for the HQ has been announced but taxpayers will be hoping that costs will be kept to a minimum. Rumours of a “Royal” opening have been discounted.

Saturday frequency bus services are operating in York and North Yorkshire today and tomorrow.

There are some exceptions; see http://getdown.org.uk/bus/xmas.shtml

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Jga12Im8cvk

http://netanimations.net/So-This-Is-Christmas.mp3

North Yorkshire Police have launched a recruitment campaign for Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs).

The force is looking for community-minded people who want to improve the quality of life in their neighbourhoods.

Posts are available in locations across the force area and we are particularly interested in hearing from candidates with a desire to work in the Scarborough, Filey and Whitby areas.

North Yorkshire Police has 179 PCSOs currently; this new recruitment campaign is designed to increase this to the full complement of 183 as well as maintain numbers as PCSOs progress their careers or leave the force; in Scarborough there will be a small increase in the number of PCSOs.

For more information about the role of a PCSO and the recruitment and training process, please go to the North Yorkshire Police website www.northyorkshire.police.uk/pcso or call (01609) 789642.

The closing date for applications is Monday 31 December 2012 at 4pm.

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City of York Council have issued a statement saying “there will be no household waste, recycling or green bin collections during the week commencing 24 December”.

“There will also be no waste collections on Tuesday 1 January 2013. Residents expecting a collection on this day will have their waste collected on another day that week.

The council will make every effort to collect waste on the scheduled day but, due to the amount of waste generated at this time of the year, some delays to the schedule may occur. Residents are asked to make full use of the Kerbside recycling service, local recycling banks or the recycling facilities at the household waste sites to prevent unnecessary waste going to landfill.

To prevent a build up of waste, all households will receive an extra collection either the week commencing 17 December or the week commencing 31 December.

Wrapping paper and greetings cards can be recycled in recycling boxes or shared recycling bins and real Christmas trees can be recycled in the green bins as long as it fits inside the bin with the lid closed

Residents are advised to refer to their collection calendars, which were delivered to all households recently, to find out what their collection arrangements are this Christmas”.

Household Waste Recycling Centres will be closed Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Years Day. The sites will be open as usual on all other days for residents to bring their excess festive waste for recycling.

For more information on waste and recycling visit: www.york.gov.uk/environment/waste/ or follow @CityofYork on Twitter

The restricted collections are due to the Council cutting back on overtime payments. We think that the Council is wrong to cancel the New Years Day collections. Anyone with a grumble should ring Cllr David Levene (01904 270068) who is responsible for the decision.

With the New Year almost here, City of York Council’s ‘Learning for Everyone’ adult learning programme is now available with new and improved courses for 2013.
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It seems likely that there will be minor flooding in parts of York over the next 48 hours. However the threat is not as great as seen earlier in the year.

Roads like Skeldergate will be closed.

The shopping centres will be unaffected although the will be pressure on parking spaces in the run up to Christmas. There is a flood warning in place for St Georges field. Use of the Park and Ride service is recommended.

As always the best guide is the web cam on Kings Staith www.farsondigitalwatercams.com/live-webcams/north/Ouse/York/#. If the no entry sign is still above the waterline then there should not be any serious flooding.

We’ll provide updates if things deteriorate

The Environment Agencies web site also now has an improved graphical representation of flood threats (above) It can be accessed here: http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/homeandleisure/floods/142151.aspx

You can check the position at monitoring sites across the County here for the Ouse catchment area tinyurl.com/Ouse-catchment

You can register to receive flood warnings from the Environment Agency here fwd.environment-agency.gov.uk/app/olr/home

These are the direct links to the Environment Agencies water level monitoring stations for York. They give the current river levels and compare them to historical records. today.

tinyurl.com/Holgate-beck-level

tinyurl.com/York-City-centre-river-level

tinyurl.com/Foss-Barrier-river-level

tinyurl.com/New-Earswick-river-level

tinyurl.com/Skelton-river-levels