Delay to re-start of garden waste collections

To ensure City of York Council can maintain frontline services, including household waste collections, and to protect frontline crews from unnecessary risk, immediate changes will be made to garden waste collections.


The council will be postponing the start of garden waste collections from April, in order to ensure household waste and recycling collections are given priority. These steps are being taken because of extraordinary pressures on frontline services during the outbreak of Covid-19 and a significantly reduced workforce. This decision will free up more frontline crews and vehicles to focus on collecting recycling and household waste in a safe way for frontline staff.

The situation will be kept under constant review, with a view to resuming garden waste collections as soon as practically possible.

Instead, the council is encouraging residents to compost their garden waste at home, and to support residents in this effort, advice and tips for easy composting at home is available on the council website HERE and on the Royal Horticultural Society website HERE.


Whilst collecting household waste is an essential service for public health reasons (a service provided under a public health act), collecting garden waste is not classed as such. Garden waste can be safely composted in the garden where it comes from.

Cllr Paula Widdowson, Executive Member for Environment & Climate Change, said: “This isn’t a decision we’ve taken lightly and this doesn’t mean we don’t want residents to garden. In some cases, this is more important than ever to keep active – particularly when self-isolating.

“We are encouraging residents to recycle and compost where possible and to support this, we have published advice for easy composting at home. If you’re unable to compost, then we’re asking residents to store their garden waste when possible, and we will collect it at a later date.”

Bolstering frontline services:

The council has reallocated resources from other teams, so that it can continue collecting household waste (black bins) and recycling boxes.
This includes redeploying staff from other services such as public realm and highways. The council is also working hard to increase its staff resource, including training a number of First and Pullman bus drivers, plus processing the applications made in response to the council’s urgent recruitment to support the refuse collection service.

Without green waste collections proceeding, additional vehicles will be made available to enable waste crews to socially distance, whilst collecting waste and recycling. Other measures are also being taken to support our waste crews, including wearing appropriate PPE based on the advice of Public Health. This also includes being issued with wipes, hand gel and new gloves every day. At this stage, face masks have not been issued, as per public health advice.

Portal goes live for business support applications

An online application portal is now up and running for businesses to use to apply for grant funding.

There have been announcements made over recent days about support available to businesses that have been impacted by the Covid-19 restrictions.

City of York Council has brought together a lot of relevant information for businesses on its website HERE

Two of the grants that are available are the Small Business Grants Fund and the Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Grant. To qualify for these grants, businesses must have been liable for the business rates on their property on 11 March 2020 and have an entitlement to the Expanded Retail Discount.

Full details of the grants, along with an online application form, are available on the council website HERE

Further bus timetable changes from 29 March

First Bus has announced further changes to timetables to come into effect from Sunday 29 March.

The number 12 service will operate a special timetable with buses every 60 minutes and early journeys on weekdays. Journeys after 7pm will continue to operate, subject to a usage review.

The number 4 service will operate a revised timetable operating every 30 minutes during the daytime with early journeys operating Monday to Friday. Services will operate at hourly intervals during the evening, with a reduction to hourly intervals earlier on a Saturday and Sunday evening than at present.

The Askham Bar Park & Ride service will be closed.

The new timetables are available online HERE

Playgrounds closed

Residents are being urged to respect the decision to close all playgrounds.

On the Revival estate, off Tadcaster Road, the playgrounds are managed by open space management company Greenbelt. In response to an e-mail from Cllr Stephen Fenton they stated that “there is no requirement to close all of our play areas.” This runs counter to Government guidance which states that “Communal spaces within parks such as playgrounds and football pitches will be closed.”

City of York Council officers stepped in and put cable ties around gates at the two playgrounds on the estate as a stop-gap measure. Sadly, one set of cable ties was cut shortly afterwards.

Stephen has asked the council to step in again to install a more permanent solution, such as a chain and lock.

Council announces £1.25 million support package

City of York Council has today announced details of a new Emergency Fund totalling £1.25m to support residents facing hardship during the Covid -19 pandemic.

With the funding in place, residents will now be able to receive financial support from two funding streams, depending on their circumstances and how much help they need.  The two funds are:

  • Emergency Hardship Fund for residents affected by Covid-19
  • Council Tax Covid-19 Hardship Fund

Further details can be found online HERE

Food shopping information

Local businesses around Dringhouses & Woodthorpe are operating where they can. We will try to share as much information as we can in future website posts, recognising that it is a fluid situation and that things may change.

Here is some information that hopefully will be of use:

• Tesco Askham Bar – Open 6am to 10pm Monday to Saturday, 10am to 4pm on Sunday. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday 9am to 10am is priority shopping time for elderly and vulnerable residents and Sunday from 9am to 10am there is a browsing hour for NHS workers
• Morrisons Acomb – Open 8am to 8pm Monday to Saturday, 10am to 4pm on Sunday. Monday to Saturday 7am to 8am the store is open early or NHS workers
• Ged Bell Butchers on Middlethorpe Grove – shop remains open and they can do deliveries. Call 01904 706069 or 07813 110218
• Richardsons Butchers on Moorcroft Road – shop remains open and they can do deliveries. Order online HERE or call 01904 707876

Libraries to expand online and home delivery service

Libraries in York are working on delivering more online services and activities including e-books, story times and other activities.

Dringhouses library


After receiving advice from Public Health, from midday on Saturday 21 March Explore Libraries are moving their services online. A service to safely deliver and collect books for those who can’t access the internet is also being scaled up. Residents now don’t have to return borrowed items until 30th June – and won’t be fined.

Cllr Darryl Smalley, Executive Member for Culture, Leisure and Communities, said:


“Explore Library and Archives already has many fantastic online services and are working quickly to create even more. In this period of social distancing and self-isolation, I hope and expect residents’ engagement in York’s library service to rocket.


“Reading for pleasure is a brilliant and restful way to relax – especially important for those in self isolation – and will continue to support people’s emotional wellbeing whilst they are at home.


“City of York Council will be working with communities in the coming week to ensure community hubs are in operation across York, supporting the most vulnerable residents with foods and medicines, and making the most of the city’s increasing pool of volunteers.


“We’re also looking at how council services which currently run from Explore’s Library Learning Centres can be delivered differently – we’ll keep you informed about them as soon as possible.”


Fiona Williams, chief executive of Explore Learning Library Centre, said:


“We are working hard and in close partnership with City of York Council to deliver a range of online services to support people at this difficult time.


“We are also looking at ways to safely deliver books to those who can’t access the internet. Any items currently on loan from us don’t need to be returned until June – and we won’t be fining anyone for them!


“Please look out for and enjoy our new and existing services at https://exploreyork.org.uk/coronavirus “