Agenda and minutes

·         Talk to your local councillors

·         Community groups locally

·         Give your views on what’s important in your local community

Residents had the opportunity to speak with Councillors Cannon, Crisp and Derbyshire in addition to Kristina Davey and representatives from York Timebank and local community groups and interests. 

Cllr Fiona Derbyshire welcomed everyone to the meeting and introduced herself and Cllrs Mary Cannon and Sonja Crisp.

What is it and how can you get involved?

Lucy Smithies gave a presentation about York Timebank. York Timebank was started in 2012 in Westfield and now has over 100 members some of whom were present in the audience. It is a system of exchange which brings people together as they can trade their time and skills as credits on an ‘ad hoc’ basis. A few examples of this would be; showing someone how to cook, helping with gardening or teaching someone a language. One hour of time spent doing someone a favour can be traded in to receive help with something else.

Tang Hall has recently started this and there are 30 people interested.

Residents were invited to ask questions:

Q - How can we share objects?

Q - How do you agree on the monetary value of objects for exchange?

Q - How would I repay an organisation if they were to help out with my gardening?

Lucy Smithies clarified that Timebanking is not really about money but in the past residents have just discussed what they think is reasonable, and organisations have just been happy to help although sometimes individuals from the organisation have received the time credits for their help. Timebankers can also exchange time credits at Energise Gym for a swimming session or exercise class.

Ward committee, team and budgets

New Arrangements - Cllr Cannon outlined the new arrangements around neighbourhood working, including the Ward committee, Ward team and Ward budgets.  Such arrangements have been designed to empower local residents and to support Ward members in identifying, developing and delivering on local priorities.  There is also some budgetary devolvement to Wards for allocation to local priorities.

Ward Budget - The Ward budget for 2015/16 is as follows:

Pride in York Fund                          £12,621 *   

General Ward Budget                    £9,466

Community Care Fund                            £4,733

(these three elements make up the total ward budget of £26,820)

Pride in York Fund (One-Off)         £29,180

Highways Programme                    £15,776

(*reduced pro rata to £6,311 for the remainder of 2015/16)

General Ward Budget - Community groups will be welcome to submit applications for grants under the General Ward Budget.

Ward Highway Programme Budget – the Ward Highway Programme Budget is in addition to the highways services already provided by the Council and enables residents to identify schemes that cover things like the resurfacing of footpaths, cycle paths and public rights of way and improvements to existing street lamps. The Council will publish a list of highways schemes in November that will be funded from the main council budget in 2016/17.  The Ward Highways Programme Budget can be carried forward to fund a more significant scheme if this is deemed appropriate.

Cllr Crisp informed the meeting that councillors would be offered training in December regarding the process for the new Highways Budget arrangements.

Ground Maintenance – Wards are being asked to identify priorities for future expenditure. Cllr Cannon referred to the consultation information available for residents to put forward their views at this meeting. Cllr Crisp informed the meeting that the Ward Team has been provided with a list of grounds maintenance tasks. She confirmed that these had been split into two sections: those which can only be completed by the Council due to health and safety implications, eg. operating machinery or working with hazardous chemicals, and those which could be picked up within the Ward, perhaps through volunteering.

Councillor Cannon outlined how the ward committee can engage with residents to help it establish ward priorities that will influence how ward budgets are spent. Councillors are working towards gaining a better understanding of the important issues in the ward through consulting with residents through their ward survey and activities at the ward committee meeting. They hope to announce their ward priorities at the next ward committee which is likely to take place in December. This will enable them to decide how to spend the budgets. She also confirmed that the ward will be expected to save around 20% of the Grounds Maintenance budget.

AGREED: Kristina Davey will circulate the Grounds Maintenance Budget information to residents that have provided their email address so that they can feed back their views to councillors.

At this point a number of questions were raised by residents who also gave their feedback about the recent survey into what the budget should be spent  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

Have your say about your ward

Councillor Derbyshire talked about the survey and suggested that it would be a good time to hear any suggestions and feedback. She stated that the councillors are nervous about the process of deciding what the spending priorities are but she said that central functions are being devolved to ward residents and stressed the importance of hearing from residents. She also stated that residents need to think about what they are willing to sacrifice due to the budget being less than last year’s. Cllr Derbyshire emphasised that residents should bring forward their ideas in order to help the committee prioritise the available resources.

The residents were asked to give a list of positives and negatives of the area:

Councillor Derbyshire then drew the meeting to a close by thanking residents for attending and emphasised that the councillors would welcome further feedback on budget priorities.

The next meeting will take place in December/January time most likely in the Leeman Road area.