Agenda and minutes

You will have an opportunity to talk to:

§         Your local Ward Councillors

§         Your Street Environment Officer

§         Your Neighbourhood Policing Team

§         Your Young People’s Services Officer

§         Your Neighbourhood Management Officer

§         Representatives from the Parish Councils

§         Representatives from Transport Planning

During the surgery residents had the opportunity to talk to the local ward councillors, the street environment officer, the Neighbourhood Policing Team, the Young people’s Service officer, An officer from North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue, Officers from The Transport Planning Dept, A representative from First York bus company, representatives from Parish Councils and the Neighbourhood Management Officer. There were several displays and plans for the new park and ride schemes also available.

On the agenda:

§         7pm – Welcome and minutes

o       We will ask for your approval of the minutes from the last meeting.

§         7:05pm - Number 10 Bus re-route

o       Terry Walker, Public Transport Planner, will update you on the Number 10 bus re-route.

§         7:10pm – Fire and Rescue Service

o       John Swires from the North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service will talk about the York Service Provisions Review.

§         7:15pm – Ward Team Update

o       You can find out what the Safer Neighbourhoods Team, Street Environment Officer and Young People’s Services have been doing over the last few months.

§         7:25pm – Discussion of Local Improvement Scheme suggestions

o       We will talk about the schemes to be voted on for next year. This is your chance to tell the meeting about any schemes you have suggested and give support to those that you think are a good idea.

§         7:55pm – Have Your Say

o       Your opportunity to raise local issues and concerns.

The meeting will be chaired by Cllr Ben Hudson

The Councillors welcomed everyone to the meeting and the minutes were agreed.

The Safer Neighbourhood Team were moved to the first item as they had to get away for police business. Sgt Andy Haigh, PC Ann Tyldesley and PCSO Nigel Colley were introduced.

Crime is up a little bit in the ward – mainly due to burglaries at Poppleton Business Park. The police think they know who’s committing the crimes and are trying to catch them. They advised people that most burglaries and crimes are committed by opportunistic thieves and to keep doors and windows locked and to remove valuables, sat navs and mobile phones form cars. Compared to other parts of the city crime is very low in the ward.

Graffiti in Copmanthorpe – it is difficult to catch offenders. The Safer York Partnership, City of York Council and North Yorkshire Police worked in partnership to produce a new web site to help tackle graffiti. The TAAGY web site is a database that can be used as evidence in court and contains hundreds of tags and where they are. Due to the site one offender was charged with over 250 tags. The tam is stop-checking people to check them for spray cans etc to try to eradicate the problem. If residents see any tags please ring the York Pride line on 551551.

Q. Are the burglaries during the day or at night?

A. At night, there’s no cause for concern – it is one of the team’s target to reduce burglary and if residents take simple precautions like locking their doors it should avoid a lot of the risk.

A question was asked about mischief night and bonfire night, the team answered that they had plans and the shifts had been changed.

John Swires explained that the Service Provision Review was to determine whether there was the right level of service in the area and where it should be. It will be advertised in the local media and available on their web site. There are 5 main  proposals – the details are available on the web site.

The options all of which will be explained in the consultation. They will mean rebuilding or refurbishing the current city centre Fire Station, building a new station possibly along the Hull Road/University corridor or making the fire crew at Huntington full-time.

All of the options have been considered and explanations of the pros and cons given on the web site. The service have looked through statistics about incidents, population, risk and new building developments to come up with the options.

At the Clifford Street Fire Station currently there are two fire engines, the aerial platform and the river rescue equipment and boat. Due to the limited space, to bring the site up to standard it would mean that the aerial platform and one fire engine would have to move to another location.

The preferred option would go to the Combined Fire Panel in February to determine which of the options is chosen.

Q. Do you check smoke and fire alarms

A. Yes if you give me your details I’ll send someone out to do it.

Q. Why along the Hull Road corridor?

A. Statistics show that there are new developments and high population as well as the new university development which makes it an area of higher risk.

Terry Walker – City of York Council, Transport Planning Dept. and Richard Eames, managing director First York gave an update. They explained the new route of the number 10 via Low Poppleton Lane once the new Manor School opens in Easter. They have changed the route to improve the service and to avoid delays crossing the junction of the A1037. The reason is to serve the school and offer a more reliable and frequent service. The engineers are redesigning the junction with the A1037. On the Boroughbridge Road they will install traffic signals to make traffic flow quicker.

One of the answers to the problem of congestion may be the new park and ride site.

Q. Will the bus still go down Station Road from the A59 or will it be cut off from the service?

A. Yes we did research and are trying to make sure that the service goers where the public need and will use it most. There are still other bus routes which do go down Station Road.

Q. There are a lot of people catching the train.

A. There’s not a lot of people that use the bus to go to the business park,they seem to use the train more.

Q. Is there an option to re-route the Ripon service?

A. Can’t promise that would happen – it’s a contract service and their schedule may stop them going through Poppleton.

Q. Is there any progress with the no. 13 service?

A. Analysis has shown that it has improved slightly. Over 6 months there has been an 8% increase in passengers. 24% of the increase is concessionary fares where the company only get 60% of the fare. We are looking at where services can go where there aren’t already too many buses on the route.

There is a need to do something about the route form the city centre to Copmanthorpe.

Q. Are you happy to attend the a Poppleton Parish meeting when your risk proposals will be available?

A. Yes, it would take 56 days to make any change we will copy the proposals to the Parish councils in the Poppleton area.

Paul Thackray told the meeting that the initial plans were at the back of the room. At this stage it is only a proposal – still to be decided, planning permission hasn’t been approved. He was using the ward committee meeting as a method to raise awareness.

The 1^st phase involves 3 new park & ride sites with the aim to reduce traffic and congestion.

One site on the A59 just past the garden centre. The land is currently green belt but park and ride is permitted. The plan is for 750 spaces and increased pedestrian and cycle access. It will involve extensive landscaping so that those operating it can see all the cars. The central building will be high quality, sustainable and possibly be a ‘landmark’ building with refreshments available and a wind turbine for power generation. The junction with the A59 will be designed for ease of use with signals on Station Road and Northfield Road. It will involve bus-lanes and a slip road.

The next stage is to submit a planning application and get finance, more that 90% of which will be provided by The Dept. of Transport. The plan is to have it started by the Spring of 2010 and completed by the Summer of 2011 with minimum disruption.

The site at Askham bar will move closer to the A64 along the Tadcaster Road. There has been a threefold increase in through traffic and the existing road is heavily congested. There have been no decisions about what will happen with the current site next to Tesco. The idea is to tackle the commuting traffic and ease congestion at peak times.

Q. Have you done any traffic flow predictions?

A. Yes we went through a thorough process of evaluation and assessment. The site is going to be moved so that it will take a lot of the vehicles out of the traffic before the junctions, college and Tadcaster Road.

Q. If the park and rides fills up the traffic will continue on to the city centre?

A. If that happens it will be out of peak times so the traffic won’t be as heavy.

Q. What will be done to stop the students from York College parking there?

A. There will be systems in place – York College does what it can to discourage students and staff driving.

Q. Why didn’t the College provide move parking spaces?

A. To encourage students and staff to find more sustainable ways of getting to the college. The College has a responsibility to encourage more ecological ways of transport.

Q. If you live in a village like Copmanthorpe students have to take the car because the bus service isn’t very good or at the right times.

A. The College is looking into providing its own bust service for the villages.

Q. Looking at the plans the entrance to the park and ride is the same as the exit this might cause extra congestion particularly with buses getting caught in traffic.

A.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

A resident spoke in favour of the scheme to support Rufforth outreach post office. (Scheme 17) They explained that it was very well used and provided a valuable and essential service to many residents.

A resident spoke about scheme number 1 – to provide lighting on the footpath between Wheelwright Close and Low Green. It is dark and residents do have a fear of crime when walking down it. It will increase safety.

It was explained that scheme 3 it would be a new board to replace the existing board which was in a bad state of repair.

Poppleton Youth Action Group spoke about their building and how they helped young people in the villages. They had 20 to 30 young people attending most evenings they operated. They would like some of the grant to help cover expenses, police checks, first aid training and so on. If they can’t pay they will have to close down and the young people they serve will have nowhere to go.

Some of the aspects of young people’s provision by the council were described by Cllr. Gillies. He explained how areas of deprivation attract more main-stream funding. He also told the meeting that there may be some changes in the funding system for youth provision in the budget in February 2009.

It was repeated about the Park and Ride scheme and whether it would cause conjestion. No other matters were raised in the Have your say item.