Agenda and minutes
PDF 107 KBVenue: Marjorie Waite Court, Evelyn Crescent
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Surgery Minutes: During the surgery residents had the opportunity to talk to the Safer Neighbourhood Team about their neighbourhood and their ideas for police priorities to help focus neighbourhood policing. |
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Welcome and minutes Minutes: Cllr. Ken King introduced officers and guests. After a show of hands the minutes were approved. |
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World Heritage Site Should York be included on the list of World Heritage Sites? Minutes: Alison Sinclair talked about the World Heritage working group and showed the meeting the leaflet they had produced. She said that in York there is evidence of 2,000 years of occupation.
The next stage is to ask the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to nominate York. The whole process can take up to ten years.
Q. What financial benefits are there from becoming a World Heritage Site? A. There are no direct financial benfits.
Q. What business will it bring to the city? A. Designation will give a ‘quality mark’ to the city. We believe it will encourage bigger spending visitors who will stay longer and do more than visit just one attraction. Durham is very positive about being designated and feels there is a benefit of more discriminating visitors.
Q. Where is the limit of the World Heritage Site and are there downsides in terms of planning? A. The site is within and including the city walls. There are no planning restrictions but it might give the conservationists a lever about suitability of proposals. |
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Canon Lee School Council Pupils from the Canon Lee School Council will talk about their issues and thoughts for the ward. Minutes: Cllr. King introduced Julie Kent from Canon Lee School. He mentioned that young people had been to Ward Committee Meetings in the past and we were luck to have two more at this meeting.
Julie Kent introduced Sammy and Laura from year 9 and year 10. She said that the School’s student Council had been asked what they think of the area in which they live. The student council sent questionnaires to pupils and collated the responses. Sammy and Laura gave the meeting the feedback from the responses.
What do you see as benefits of York? The answers were the cinemas, bowling, the parks and green spaces, the cycle paths and YorZone card which has been a major success.
What are the main problems in the area? Vandalism, anti-social behaviour and lack of respect. We need more out of school activities and swimming pools. Drivers don’t always stop at zebra-crossings so road safety is an issue. Sometimes there are big groups of younger people who smoke and drink, this makes others feel unsafe. Litter and poor lighting especially on cycle paths.
What do you do out of school? All the usual answers; football, rugby, netball, horse riding and skateboarding. Playing on computers, even though we know we shouldn’t play too much on them. Some people play music or are in a band. But there’s not much to do academically.
Do you have any ideas on how to improve the area? More clubs and activities. Better bus service. More CCTV. Better advertising of events and activities. A covered secure place for young people to go to. More local police on patrol – when you notice the police you feel safer. Get the police to recognise the difference between a group of friends meeting up and a gang committing anti-social behaviour.
The meeting was then asked if there were any questions. Q. What did you mean by lack of respect? A. A respect for the local environment and older people. Sometimes the PCSOs can be a bit harsh to youngsters not causing trouble.
Q. Why were you chosen to come to the Ward Committee meeting. A. Each year nominates and elects representatives to be on the School Council. The School Council then took nominations and elected Sammy and Laura to come to the meeting.
Q. Do you think there’s enough police presence? A. It would be better if there was more patrols but it is better than it was.
The police would be invited to send someone along to School council meetings.
Cllr. King then thanked the girls and said that this demonstrates that there are a lot of good children in the ward and that the ward team would note what they’d asked for and had put aside some of the budget to support young people. |
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Police Update Your opportunity to let the neighbourhood police team know your concerns and issues to help them to target their resources. Minutes: Sean Page told the meeting that the Safer Neighbourhood Team had been going for about 12 months. There were 2 PCs and 8 PCSOs who were split to cover 4 separate communities. They felt that they had really made a difference. Overall crime is down 9%. The team had consulted during the surgery on communities and on possible priorities. The priorities that had been highlighted were;
He asked the meeting if anyone had any other ideas about the priorities for the team.
He told the meeting about ‘Hotel Watch’ and the team working to reduce auto-crime. He also mentioned ‘Jackass’ project where offenders will be sent shaming letters. He covered setting up some neighbourhood watch schemes, the action day in ‘The Croft’ and crime prevention days.
He told the meeting that the team were looking to set up bases on the ward. In Shipton Street and they were looking at the feasibility of a ‘container office’. In the summer they are hoping to have a ‘Youth Engagement Day’.
He then asked for questions from the meeting.
Q. How many night patrols are there? A. The response team is available 24 hours a day 7 days a week. The Safer Neighbourhood Team have limited times to patrol and tend to do 6 days on and 6 days off. Certain areas are prioritised for special patrols.
Q. What about when kids are being abusive and the PCSOs walk away? A. That should never happen but we are constantly working on how we do things.
Q. Do your officers get out and leave the office? A. I assure you that the officers are out patrolling and responding to calls.
Q. What are the police doing o protect small businesses and the impact on the area if businesses feel threatened? A. We run ‘Business Watch’ with Safer York and schemes like Deadman’s Alley in response to threats etc. |
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Election of Planning Panel The Planning Panel will be elected at the meeting. Minutes: After a short introduction to the planning panel. The ward will actively encourage residents onto the panel to represent the Haxby Road side of the ward.
The nominees were;
Mrs Maureen Knaggs Les Marsh Geoffrey Williams Oliver Balme Brian Richardson George Tweedy Doug Cook Mrs Joanne Finlay Peter Smith Andrew Batterton
After a show of hands these members were elected to the Planning Panel. |
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Presentation of Budget Decision Minutes: Cllr. David Scott gave a presentation about the budget. The main points from the presentation were;
Unknowns How much money we have to spend Whether the schemes will be able to be done
Under spends
Unexpected events
How We Choose The Votes Cast A fair spread across our key objectives
Safer Communities
Cleaner Environment
An inclusive Ward
Extras
Capital and Revenue Projects
Safer Communities Allegating £3,000 Road Safety
£10,000
Speed Matrix
Traffic Calming
Raising Curbs
Entrance to Highcliffe Court
Street Lighting
£5,000
An Inclusive Ward
A Cleaner Environment Water Butts £500 Litter Bins Fund £1,000 Dog Fouling Penalty Sign £300 Dog Bin on Horner Street £375 Doorstep Garden Waste Collection £2,000 Bulky Item removal £2,000
Grant to Older Citizens Advocay (OCAY) York £2,000 Grant to Bootham &
Clifton Out and About Club
£2,950
Grant to York & District Sports Federation
£250
Youth Fund
£4,500
Extras
Sign Post Clifton Green to Museum Gardens £300 Plaque on the Burton
Stone
£300
Clifton Planning Panel
£50
Replace benches on Almery Terrace
£1,000
Finally
Contingency Fund £3,000
Total Spend For Clifton Residents £38,525
The presentation was praised as the most painless ever.
It was then opened up for discussion. There were several questions about alleygating areas of the ward which the councillors responded to. The meeting was consulted and agreed to looking into alleygating the back of Avenue Terrace. They told the meeting that by having alleygating across the city subsidies and economies of scale were available. Some of the schemes mentioned were Avenue Terrace, the Burton Stone plaque and Highcliffe Court.
The councillors explained that they were trying to use the budget in an effective way to address issues focussing on the ward ambitions from the Neighbourhood Action Plan. |
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Have Your Say Minutes: Q. Has anyone heard anything about the closure of the post office? A. It is closing in March. There are 2 post offices in Clifton which are likely to close. A petition has been sent with more than 2,000 names on it. Special thanks should be extended to Hugh Bailey for the hard work he has put in to the support of the post offices.
Other comments were about Essex County Council have saved ½ the post offices. Could there be feasibility studies into having more council services through post offices.
Q. Can there be a way of stopping motorbikes getting onto Clifton Backies at the end of Burton Green? A. We need to talk to people that can actually achieve effective results – Leisure Services, Resdients’ Association for Estate Improvement Grant, Burton Green School. We need to find the correct funding for this.
Sometimes it doesn’t matter if you stop them getting on at one place they’ll get on at another. Some of the people using bikes on the backies made a hole in the hedge to get in.
Q. The lights on the river path from Clifton to Scarborough Bridge have been vandalised. This was mentioned 15 months ago. They were repaired but then got re-vandalised.
A. This will be looked at again, the councillors had been assured that the council officer was looking into it.
There were some further comments about the parking bays on Burdyke Avenue but this is an Estate Improvement grant issue and therefore for the Residents’ Association to look into not the ward committee. There were no other questions or comments |