Agenda and minutes

1.1       Local residents had the opportunity to speak to Cllr Brian Watson, Cllr Janet Looker, Iain Dunn (Street Environment Officer), The Safer Neighbourhoods Policing Team and Michael Hawtin (Neighbourhood Management Officer).

1.2       Residents also had the opportunity to find out more information about the NHS Foundation Trust and York Credit Union.

2.1 Cllr Brian Watson welcomed residents to the meeting.

2.2 The minutes of the last meeting were approved and signed by Cllr Brian Watson.

You can find out what the Safer Neighbourhood Team, Street Environment Officer and Young People’s Service have been doing in the ward over the last few months

Ray Milligan introduced himself to the meeting and explained that he is currently acting sergeant for the Guildhall ward.  He gave an update on Crime and Community Safety issues in the ward.  The following points were noted:

3.1     The Safer Neighbourhood Team (SNT) have been very busy over the last 2 months.

3.2     The Ice Factor was policed very robustly with a large presence of PSCO’s.  There were no real problems other than a couple of petty property thefts from the ice skating rink.  The items were recovered and returned. 

3.3     The SNT is currently going through a period of change in terms of shift patterns and resources.  From February PCSO coverage hours will be extended from 10pm to midnight.  Rota’s will also be changing but the details of this have not yet been finalised.

3.4     PSCO Jenny McLaughlin is organising a youth festival day for the summer.  This will involve arts and music amongst other things.   PCSO McLaughlin would welcome any ideas from residents and can be contacted on 0845 6060247.

3.5     The SNT will shortly be running Operation Machine which will be focussed on deterring car crime.  There will be a high visible police presence in the Walmgate area. The aim is to educate people in car crime prevention.

3.6     Overall, crime in the ward is down by 5% compared to last year.  There has however been an increase in dwelling burglaries.  Operation Joypad is underway which involves the SNT testing the doors on residential property’s to see if they are locked.  If the doors are unlocked, the SNT will put a postcard through the residents letterbox to alert them that their property is insecure.

3.7     Alleygating schemes in the ward have been approved and should be underway by March 2009.

3.8     The SNT have intelligence on who has been causing criminal damage to windows in Walmgate.  Residents should be reassured that the holes in the windows were not caused by a gun.

Inspector Mark Khan informed residents about the policing pledge.  Postcards outlining the pledge were available for residents to look at.  The following points were noted:

3.9     The policing pledge is a set of 10 pledges that North Yorkshire Police (NYP) are expected to deliver and will be measured against.

3.10The SNT realise that they have some work to do to be able to achieve all of these pledges.  Particularly, there is work to be done on the time taken for the SNT to respond to messages from the public and also the methods in which the team gives monthly updates to the public.   A resident suggested that the SNT could publish updates in the numerous free publications that are delivered to houses around the city.

3.11The SNT welcomes feedback and ideas from residents and encouraged them to get in touch with the team on 0845 6060 247 or through the NYP website.

3.12Inspector Khan has been tasked with finding 3 police priorities to cover the whole area that he is responsible for;  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

Jo Pullar will tell us how the expansion into No. 107 Walmgate is going and what it will mean to them.

Jo Pullar gave a presentation on Space 109.  The following points were noted:

4.1     Space 109 continues to be very popular providing many activities for the community.

4.2     A project that some of the children were involved in was to design the plaques which are at the entrances to the city walls.  These have now been placed on the walls.

4.3     Due to the success of Space 109 the current building now has an inadequate amount of space.  The team are in the process of extending into the vacant building at 107 Walmgate.

4.4     There continues to be problem with criminal damage in the area.  There is a strong argument for CCTV to be installed.

Residents asked the following questions:

a)  Do you have any activities for older members of the community?

Response was given that currently a lot of the activities are focussed on children and youths however plans are in place to run projects which involve wider groups of the community.  Regular drawing classes and residents meetings are held there for older residents and someone has also suggested holding a discussion group.  Any suggestions from residents are welcome.

b)  When will the project to extend into 107 Walmgate be complete?

Response was given that this is underway and is scheduled to be complete by February 2009.

4.5  Cllr Brian Watson praised Jo for the success of Space 109, the ward team are very proud of this project.

Mike Horncastle will tell the meeting about the work of the Credit Union.

5.1 Cllr Looker declared an interest explaining that she is a director of York Credit Union (YCU).

Mike Horncastle, Manager of YCU gave a presentation about the work of YCU and encouraged residents to become members. 

The following points were noted:

5.2YCU is a community bank offering savings and loans services  to anyone over 18 who lives or works in York.  It is owned and controlled by its members.

5.3 Money is recycled within the city and all profits are returned to members as a dividend on their savings.

5.4YCU offers simple and straightforward regular savings accounts and easily arranged low cost loans with no arrangement fees or other hidden charges.  As such, the total repayment amounts on a YCU loan are much lower than other high street loans. Free life savings and loan protection insurance is offered to most members.

5.5YCU are not permitted to take risks with members savings.  The money is invested in the Co-operative bank which provides free banking services to YCU.

Residents asked the following questions:

a)  Are YCU prepared to offer loans to people who are already in a large amount of debt?

Response was given that YCU does not exclude anybody. The decision to offer a loan is based on two factors: the intention and the ability to repay the debt; County Court Judgements and bad debts are not taken into consideration.  The YCU can loan people money to consolidate their debts.

b)  How do dividends compare to interest?

Response was given that YCU is not allowed to offer interest.  A dividend is a percentage of YCUs profit over a financial year and is currently about 2%. This is less than the interest rate that a bank could offer however the YCU does not operate under the same risks as other financial institutions. 

c)  Where would YCU operate most effectively – on the high street or out in the community?

Response was given that research has shown that a high street presence is important however YCU do not have the resources to fund that.  City of York Council has recently awarded YCU a grant of £10,000 to set up savings points in local communities.

d)  Do you get a feeling for the amount of poverty in York?

Response was given that YCU do a lot of work out in the community and do get a sense of the amount of poverty in York. Unfortunately this is likely to get much worse with the credit crunch and recession.  YCU is likely to come into its own during this time as it does not suffer the same problems as other financial institutions. 

5.6Information packs with details of YCU saver accounts and loans were available for residents to take away. 

The Planning Panel will be elected for the coming year.

6.1        Cllr Brian Watson advised the meeting that Jill Pratt has put herself forward to join the planning panel.

6.2        Findlay Cooke, Clerk of the Planning Panel explained that the planning panel are currently processing around 15 applications every three weeks.  This has been a fairly daunting task in the past year.

6.3        All current members of the planning panel wish to stand again.

6.4        No objections were raised.

The councillors will ask for approval of their proposed list and announce which schemes have been approved for the coming year.

7.1      Cllr Janet Looker explained that the provisional scheme list is published in the January issue of Your Ward.  Copies were available for residents to look at.

7.2      The council has not set the budget for 2009/10 therefore none of the funding is set in stone.

7.3      No objections to the provisional scheme list were raised.

Your opportunity to discuss local issues and concerns.

a)      Maintenance of cycle paths and roads that have dedicated cycle lanes is very poor in the ward; there are many big pot-holes in the roads.  This is a Health and Safety issue as these are very dangerous to a cyclist.

b)      Path near Keystones pub going to the Ice House is blocked what can we do about it. It is owned by the pub but are they allowed to block access to the Ice House by the city walls.