Agenda and minutes

You will have an opportunity to talk to your ward councillors, your Street Environment Officer, Michelle Watling, Sgt Andy Haigh of the Safer Neighbourhoods Team, John Miller from YorWaste and Michael Hawtin, your Neighbourhood Management Officer.

1.1       At the ward committee surgery residents had the opportunity to discuss ward issues with Cllr. Gillies and Cllr. Hudson, the Street Environment Officer, Safer Neighbourhoods Team, Neighbourhood Management Officer and Damon Copperthwaite of City Strategy.

2.1       Cllr. Gillies, the chair, welcomed everyone to the meeting and noted the apologies of Cllr. Paul Healey who couldn’t attend. He invited those present to inspect the minutes from the previous meeting, which were then agreed and signed.

John Miller from YorWaste will give a presentation about their work.

3.1       Two representative of Yorwaste – Steve Worsley, site manager at Harewood Whin Landfill and Phil Bedford, York Divisional Director – spoke about recent changes at Harewood Whin Landfill designed to address the concerns of local residents.

3.2       Steve Worsley came to Harewood Whin eight months ago to address the issues that were seen as major local concerns: litter and odour.

3.3       In that time, they have invested £150,000 in new gas wells and are awaiting delivery of new gas engines, both of which will improve gas capture at the site. This is the main reason behind the odour coming from the site. A report by the Environment Agency on future gas infrastructure at the site projects that they will be capturing enough gas to adequately prevent odour in future. By mid-March, when the new gas engines are running, the odour should have disappeared completely.

3.4       To address the problem of litter they are conducting daily checks on the main road and in the village of Rufforth, and the litter is collected immediately. They have spent £50,000 on hi-tech litter netting for the site.

3.5       The company has recently undergone major restructuring and there are new representatives of the company dealing with local concerns. They have planned a presentation for next summer.

Q. How practical is it to prevent the smell of the gas?

A. The gas generates electricity which generates revenue.

Q. How long does it generate gas for?

A. It generates gas for 10 years, but the majority is generated in the first 2-3 years.

Q. Does the company invest revenue into preventative measures?

A. Yes.

Q. There are improvements still to be made but it was reported that the issues had been resolved to the satisfaction of Rufforth and Knapton Parish Council – but this is not the case.

A. The company apologies for that.

Q. Applicants for the incinerator at Tockworth are having full consultation with residents, and Yorwaste are in agreement. There is a presentation planned for the summer but it’s up to Yorwaste to set a date. Who do I now go to to arrange that?

A. Contact Phil Bedford.

Q. There has also been a problem with water pollution at the site and with the permission granted for the biomass plant. Residents ought to know what’s going on in advance. When permission was granted, there was a timetable for turning the site into a nature reserve – what is that timetable? The cycle route from Rufforth to Poppleton that’s 90% complete was part of the S102 action in 2002, but it hasn’t been completed.

A. (Steve Worsley) Any water discharged from the site is tested on a weekly basis and there have been no problems with water pollution in the past eight months.

(Phil Bedford) Permission has just been granted for the biomass plant. There were invitations to similar sites.

A. (Resident) Representatives of the parish council went to Pickering and they felt that it was too technical for parish council representatives to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

4.1            Damon Copperthwaite of City Strategy spoke about proposed plans for the Park & Ride on the A59.

4.2             The Park & Ride is part of the Access York Phase 1 project, which is part of the transport strategy to reduce congestion. The A59 is the only major A road without a Park & Ride.

4.3             The Park & Ride on the A59 will be on Station Road at the junction of Northfield Lane, which will be signal-controlled. The cars will come down Northfield Lane and into the carpark; buses will use a separate entrance. The proposed site is on a greenbelt area, but Park & Ride sites are allowed to be built on greenbelt.

4.4             The project is now close to pre-application consultation; the consultation should take place in March, with the planning application in August and, all going well, a decision will be made in January. It is hoped construction would be complete by the end of 2011.

4.5             There are no definite proposals for the A59 roundabout, but we would like to discuss it at a future meeting. At that stage we would also have proposals for the A59 going into the city.

Q. (Cllr. Gillies) What is the timescale for development?

A. It must be completed by the end of the financial year 2011-12.

Q. (Cllr. Gillies) What are the plans for the roundabout?

A. We plan to improve the capacity of the A59 roundabout. We are looking at lots of options.

Q. Could the entrance to the Park & Ride start from the entrance to Old Moor Lane?

A. Old Moor Lane was part of the original plan. There are properties there which raises safety issues – we don’t want to proliferate journeys. We didn’t feel that the benefits outweighed the disadvantages. We will improve the capacity of the roundabout. There is also a plan to improve the capacity of the outer ring road. We were unsuccessful in a recent bid, but this improvement will arrive.  

Q. There is no link onto Burland’s Lane, is there?

A. Yes, there is access.

Q. Where is the mini-roundabout?

A. It’s near the livery place.

Q. What is the capacity of the site?

A. The construction will take place in two phases. It will initially have 650 places, but the application will be for 1,200 places. When the extra capacity is required we can extend it.

Q. Don’t we need a site inside the ring road?

A. It’s not about capturing people who live within the ring road, it’s about people from radial routes coming into city. We know that people go out to it. From a survey of users based on postcode we know that people travel out of the city. Park & Ride is cheap compared to parking.

Q. Does the same timescale apply to Askham Bar?

A. Yes, all three schemes are progressing at a roughly similar time. That way we will get economies of scale. We’re not going through planning at the same time, that needs to be staggered.

Q. What  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

Sgt. Andy Haigh will provide an update on what the Safer Neighbourhoods Team have been doing in your area.

5.1       PC Anna Tyldesley introduced the team and outlined their two sets of priorities, residents’ priorities and police priorities.

5.2            Regarding the residents’ priorities, priorities 1 and 3, anti-social behaviour and criminal damage, are linked together. The Safer Neighbourhoods team have identified a small group of young people in the villages and they are visiting their houses and speaking to parents. Up to November the incidents of anti-social behaviour had decreased.

5.3       The other resident priority is speeding. They have passed this on to Traffic Management, who have devised a Speeding Concern Report in order to prioritise the information coming from the public. If residents complain more about specific speeding issues in the ward, they will task cars to the village. They would also like the Safer Neighbourhoods Team to be trained in speed guns so they can target speeding together with Traffic Management.

5.4       The main priorities of the police are theft and burglary. There has been a problem at the business park in Poppleton but the police have a specific target in mind so they are using extra patrols and surveillance. The number of burglaries is on the way down again, but it is up over the year. Crime figures are also on the way down, but the numbers are up by 65 crimes on last year.

Q. Are the forms for other traffic offences or just speeding?

A. Just speeding.

Q. There is an issue on Main Street, Copmanthorpe, with people in delivery vehicles using mobile phones.

A. The police have to see the offence being committed.

Q. There is a problem with people using the roundabout to overtake.

A. This is a recurring problem but the police don’t have the resources to put on the roundabout. Queue-jumping is careless driving, but it is very hard to deal with.

Cllr. Gillies noted that everyone appreciates the higher visibility of the police in the ward.

6.1       Janet Hopton spoke about progress in the campaign for York to bid for World Heritage Site status.

6.2             A steering group was formed two years ago to examine the possibility of bidding for World Heritage Status. In April 2007 they asked the council to support the bid. This coincided with a government review of world heritage status, and the council wanted more consultation. The response was more than 80% in favour of the bid.

6.3       The steering group wanted to raise awareness of the bid, so there are leaflets available for this. In 2008 the steering group talked to groups across the city, including ward committees, and the response was very supportive. There have been supportive letters from some of the major actors in the city – the university, the Minster, MPs.

6.3             The government review arrived in December and the steering group has decided to take the report to the Council Executive in March.

6.4             The findings of the review show that there is now a focus on natural rather than cultural sites for World Heritage Status, and that they are looking for sites in the developing world rather than Western Europe, both of which make it difficult for York. Their response is that World Heritage Status should be something of outstanding universal value and shouldn’t be subject to quantification. It would have been easier for York to make a bid twenty years ago. There were concerns then that it would prohibit development, but evidence from Edinburgh suggests that it has improved the design of new buildings. World Heritage Site status will give protection, but it is the same protection offered to a Conservation Area, so there would be no new restrictions.

6.5       Price Waterhouse Coopers have examined the cost of a bid, but the steering group disagree with their conclusions. They believe York is more or less ready for an application. The key area of the application is the management plan, and this is ready.

6.6       The first stage is a preliminary application. At the second stage, they are invited to do a full application. The first stage will cost nothing other than officer time. In the second stage, once they are on the UK tentative list, the major cost will be the application to UNESCO, which will cost £225,000 over four years. We see it in partnership with the private sector, and a relatively small cost for the potential benefits. The consultants tended to talk down the benefits. World Heritage Site status would help maintain tourism and attract businesses, students and residents to the city. World Heritage Site status is what each site makes of it, and York would make the most of it. The bid is one way to care for the future of York’s heritage and it would also do a lot for civic pride, which would benefit the entire community.

6.7       If the council support the project, they would launch a preliminary bid in July and submit a full application by April. They  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

There will be a discussion and presentation on how the budget for 2009/10 has been allocated. The proposed grants and schemes list will then be approved at the meeting.

7.1       The ward committee budget, currently £32,800, is based on the population of the ward and is split according to the three ambitions: safer communities, a cleaner, greener environment and more community opportunities. In the past couple of years, the ward committee has tried to make a difference to the villages to do some significant schemes, for example, Copmanthorpe street-lighting, Askham Richard kerbing and this year the Poppleton play area. There is no significant scheme this year, so the councillors have tried to spread the budget fairly around the villages.

7.2       Youth provision in the centre of York is funded by the city, but in the rural areas it’s funded by the ward committee and the local area. This year we’ve managed to pay for every scheme that came through the voting. It may be that there’s money left, so submit requests if you have any ideas.

7.3       (Cllr. Hudson) Everyone has to agree that they’re happy with what’s being spent.

Your opportunity to discuss local issues and concerns with your ward councillors.

Q. What is the common land referred to in scheme 07?

A. (James Mackman, Parish Council) It is Parish Council land.

Q. Will it cost £1,500 to repair the Parish Council noticeboard?

A. It’s a new noticeboard and the cost is based on the cost of the Knapton noticeboard. The Parish Council no longer has the facility of using shops so they need a method of communicating with local residents.

A. (Cllr. Gillies) Notices about Harewood Whin need to be displayed in the village.

Q. Could the new bus service between York and Harrogate be diverted through Poppleton?

A. (Cllr. Gillies) I’ll follow that up. I’ve asked them to move the Ripon bus through the village but it is a question of timing.

Q. York is now providing free swimming for the over 60s, but pensioners can afford swimming. I’m afraid that it will adversely affect the pools.

A. There is some sympathy with that view.