City of York Council is advising residents and commuters that essential resurfacing works will be taking place on the A1079 between Common Road and Holme Lea Farm, Dunnington, this month.

The resurfacing works will be carried out in two phases. The first phase of works is programmed to commence on Friday 22 June and will last for approximately one day, subject to weather conditions, working from 9.30am and 4pm. Continue reading →

Despite some occasional glitches, the ability to look at planning applications submitted to local Councils “on line” has been one of the significant improvements introduced over the last 5 years.

Residents are able to set up alerts which tell them about any applications affecting their area.

There have been occasional problems with keeping the York Council web site up to date, but generally it has proved to be a useful facility.

Over 40% of planning applications to City of York Council are now received electronically

In times of economic austerity, it seems strange therefore that the Council continues to produce hard copy of the documentation. In the main these are for the benefit of statutory consultees like Parish Councils. Local “Planning Panels” – essentially Quangos made up of self appointed local experts – are also offered the papers in printed form.

One wonders whether these consultees are really an essential part of the process any more? Most of York doesn’t have Parish Councils and there is little evidence, that issues in non parished areas, are not given detailed consideration by officials and planning committees.

Most importantly, now that every resident is able to have their say on applications simply by accessing the web, why is an extra consultation step needed at all?

The Council has now been asked to set up a time consuming “scrutiny panel” to look into the need for paper copies of documents. When the Council moves to its new offices in Toft Green very little paper will be stored anyway with correspondence being scanned for storage purposes.

Many will believe that it is time to make the switch to paperless systems.

Residents can find the York Planning “portal” at this web address: http://planningaccess.york.gov.uk/online-applications/

North Yorkshire Police will be carrying out mobile safety camera enforcement on the following roads between Wednesday 20 and Tuesday 26 June.

•A64 Malton by-pass Malton east and west-bound
•A64 Seamer by-pass Scarborough
•A64 Seamer Road, Scarborough
•A64 Between Whitwell Hill and Barton Hill
•A64 Between Barton-le-Willows and Jinnah
•A64 Between Barton Hill and Whitwell Hill
•B1257 Newgate Bank, Hawnby Continue reading →

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Residents have been first mystified and then angry about the way in which the Council has used the excitement surrounding the arrival of the Olympic torch as a smokescreen to spirit away over 33% of the City’s litter and poop scoop bins.

You’d have to be a pretty enthusiastic reader of this web site to have had any advanced notice of their removal.

Across the City 349 bins are being removed from residential areas. In addition, others have been removed from the City centre, although there 1 in 10 are being replaced by larger “big belly” models.

A total of 1024 litter and “poop scoop” bins currently remain on our streets. In the Dringhouses Ward their locations can be found in the list on the right.

We believe that the Council should provide a comprehensive list of retentions and removals on their web site.

The bins have been removed just before the Olympic torch enters the City. The intense on the street activity associated with this event could, of course, mean much more litter generation.

No doubt some Labour Councillors thought that now was a great time to take their controvertial action, believing that the Torch publicity would leave little space for protests about yet another assault on street level public service standards.

Tickets for the Olympic Torch celebrations from 2.30pm at York Racecourse on 19 June have all now been taken, according to City of York Council and partners Visit York.

Since they were made available on 8 June, 26,000 free tickets have been collected

There will be free car parking on the Knavesmire off Knavesmire Road and at Bustardthorpe off Bishopthorpe Road. Spectators are urged to come early and to avoid Tadcaster Road and the rolling road closures which will start from 5pm on 19 June and operate between 7.30-8.30am on 20 June.

Road users are advised to avoid the city centre and allow plenty of extra time for their journeys. Listen out for traffic updates on local radio stations or on twitter at #YorkTorch

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York has, for many years, had one of the lowest youth unemployment rates in the Country. Although in York there has been a recent slight upward trend, numbers are generally stable.

However, between April 2011 and April 2012 the number of young JSA claimants who had been seeking work for over 6 months increased from 215 to 400.

The highest number of unemployed can be found in the Clifton, Heworth and Westfield wards.

Twenty 16/17 year olds were on JSA. Local authorities have the statutory responsibility to secure education and training in their areas for these young people aged 16-18 (and up to age 25 for young people subject to a learning difficulty assessment), promote the effective participation in education or training of these young people and make arrangements to identify those not participating.

The York Council is right in not being complacent about youth unemployment in the City. Although the number of job vacancies exceeds the total number of unemployed young people there is a mismatch between the skills of those looking for work and jobs. Perhaps not surprisingly many are seeking employment in the currently still depressed construction industry while the care and retail sectors are always seeking new staff.

The Education and Skills Act (2008) places a duty on all young people to participate in education or training until their 18th birthday (or until they achieve a Level 3 qualification). The legislation raises the participation age in two stages, to the end of the academic year in which a young person turns 17 from 2013 and until their 18th birthday from 2015. This does not mean young people must stay in school; they will able to choose one of the following options:
• full-time education, such as school, college or home education
• an Apprenticeship
• full-time work (or volunteering) with part-time education or training alongside

There are a number of Apprenticeship vacancies available with the Council and elsewhere in the City.

See also http://tinyurl.com/York-youth-jobs

Recycling Week 2012 kicks off on Monday 18 June – 22 June and City of York Council is using the opportunity to push the Zero Waste challenge.

The focus of this year’s Recycling Week is on the plastic bottle. With less than 50 per cent of plastic bottles making it to the recycling bin, and over 15 million used daily, the push is for people to ensure they recycle all bottles during Euro 2012 in their kerbside recycling box or bin.

If everyone in the UK recycled one more plastic bottle during recycle week 2012 we would have saved enough energy to power 71,000 plasma screen TVs for a year.

Throughout the year the Zero Waste York team will be working with different communities across York to increase recycling and reduce waste by one percent, which works out at about 900 tonnes of rubbish across the city.

City of York Council and bus operators in York have announced that a “go anywhere” ticket will be available from 1st July.

The new ticket avoids the need to buy a second ticket if a passenger is moving from one bus companies vehicle to a different operator.

Although welcome, the new arrangement is likely to benefit only 4% of bus users. The vast majority of journeys are made with the same operator or by using a pensioners pass which already allows free cross operator use.

The costs of managing this type of system have been put at, in excess of, £100,000 a year. The Council have yet to reveal how much – if any – will fall on Council taxpayers to fund.

The ‘All York’ ticket can be purchased on any bus in the city and will go on sale from Sunday 1 July.

Two products will be launched on this date:

• All York Day (£5 – adult day ticket)
• All York Family (£10 – a day ticket valid for up to five people, maximum two adults)

The ‘All York adult day ticket is to be launched at an introductory price of £4.50 which is cheaper than buying return tickets with two different bus operators.

The Council have so far failed to comment on the issues that have arisen through the introduction of pensioners pass readers on some First buses. The card reader system is expected to offer a low cost solution to allocating revenue to different operators when cross route journey’s are made.

York bus operators include: Continue reading →

Bins to be removed. Click to enlarge

Labour have announced the 22 litter bins that they will be scrapping in the Dringhouses Ward.

It amounts to over a 1/3 of the total provision in the area.

Incredibly they are removing bins from high litter areas such as Tadcaster Road and the Acomb Wood Drive shops forecourt.

Tadcaster Road does particularly badly with 9 bins likely to be removed including 2 which serve the area near Tesco.

The cuts will leave the 10,000 residents in the Dringhouses Ward with a total of just 34 litter bins and 28 “poop scoop” bins.

Council workers start to remove litter bins

Labour have claimed that the scrapped bins duplicate other bins, are unused or are used to dispose of domestic waste.

The decision comes just 2 months after the Beckfield Lane recycling centre was closed.

The future of the free green waste collection is also under review as Labour look for savings to fund their City centre projects.

Overall across the City 350 litter and “poop scoop” bins are to be removed

We say, “These cuts follow the city centre cuts and will leave residents questioning how Labour can find money for free Wi-Fi schemes and a £1 million slush fund for the Council Leader, but can not provide the basic frontline services that residents need. It is typical of this out-of-touch Labour administration that is neglecting the neighbourhoods and residents it claims to support”