County council decides to continue online meetings

Senior North Yorkshire county councillors have decided to not return to in-person meetings following the relaxation of covid restrictions.

The authority’s executive has recommended to a full council meeting next month that its in-person meetings, which shape key services ranging from education to road maintenance, should be limited to only those that committee chairs believe are necessary.

While most councillors believe the quality of debate is stifled due to the nature of online meetings, in practice the recommendation is likely to mean all but most full authority, planning and scrutiny of health committee meetings will continue to be held virtually.

Since March 2020 almost every major decision on many public services for the county’s 605,000 residents have been made by its chief executive officer, Richard Flinton, who has used emergency powers granted under the pandemic.

The overwhelming majority of the council’s committees have been held online and broadcast on YouTube, leading to a cut in mileage claimed by councillors of 131,338 miles, a saving in travel claims of £55,221, an estimated saving of 668 working days in travel time and 36.774 tonnes less carbon dioxide emissions a year.

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The broadcasting of meetings, which are held during the normal working week, has led to a sharp upturn in the number of people watching proceedings.

Pandemic an ‘eye-opener’

The authority’s executive member for education Cllr Patrick Mulligan said the pandemic had proved “an absolute eye-opener” in terms of the advantages the council could reap from remote working.

The meeting heard while the government was encouraging people to return to workplaces, executive members warned against losing the advantages that remote meetings have brought in “a rush back to the office by some quarters”.

Cllr Janet Sanderson, executive member for children’s services, added: 

“Setting covid aside, going back to anything other than virtual meetings in a blend would be a retrograde step.”

Executive members were also told the authority had a responsibility to protect  its staff, but also its elected members, many of whom are aged above or close to traditional retirement age.

Cllr Carl Les, leader of the council, said online meetings had enabled him to be much more productive, attending up to six meetings in a day instead of about two in-person.

He said:

“I think it’s right to continue to be cautious. 

“The emergency powers have served us well and I would like to think we can continue with that, but also as we start to come out of the pandemic, if we are coming out of the pandemic, to give a bigger role to chairs of committees to decide when meetings should be held in person.”

New moves to improve cycling in North Yorkshire

A local authority facing a huge demand to increase cycling infrastructure has revealed it is mapping all non-public right-of-way cycle routes for the first time to make it easier for people to swap their cars for bikes.

North Yorkshire County Council’s highways team is set to produce a cycling route map spanning England’s largest county while also examining moves such as segregating road users as sweeping Highway Code changes are introduced to make cycling easier and safer.

The announcements follow the authority being inundated with proposals for cycle route schemes from residents and community groups after the authority received £1m from Department for Transport Active Travel Fund last year to improve the infrastructure for cyclists and pedestrians.

Despite numerous calls for action to enable active travel in rural areas, the council said it would focus the funding on large towns, such as Harrogate, as greater populations meant better value for money.

Harrogate currently has cycling routes planned for Otley Road and Victoria Avenue in Harrogate and Harrogate Road in Knaresborough.

A meeting of the county’s Local Access Forum this week heard safety concerns continued to be a major factor in determining whether people chose to cycle and that the government was trying to discourage segregating cyclists by using white lines, “given that white lines don’t do anything to protect cyclists”.

Instead, highway officers said, the authority was now moving towards physically segregating cyclists and motorists, but it was a more expensive than simply using white lines and would “not happen overnight”.

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The forum’s chairman, Paul Sherwood, said action was needed to improve roads for cyclists. He said:

“Is the highways section of the county council aware of the incredibly dangerous situation of the appallingly maintained roads in which cycling is extremely hazardous in the way the roads are at the moment?”

Funding from developers

Officers replied that the roads were subject to a scheduled programme of inspections and the council was looking to gain extra funding through property developers’ contributions for safety improvements. The meeting heard the availability of funding could increase when the forthcoming unitary authority controls most of the county’s planning matters.

The meeting was told it was hoped a county-wide map of non-public right of way routes would make it easier for cyclists to plan.

An officer said:

“We recognise it is not that easy to find out where those routes are. We are moving towards making that more accessible.”

The meeting heard the authority would be taking into account the HIghway Code changes, in which cyclists are encouraged to cycle in the middle of the road, but the changes were unlikely to impact on the design for cycling infrastructure.

Councillors were told the council would examine schemes such as one introduced in parts of York where bollards have been placed at the side of the road to segregate cyclists and motorists, which had increased safety for cyclists while the narrowing of the road had slowed traffic.

Council predicts loss-making Brierley Group will return to profit

North Yorkshire County Council is predicting its trading arm will bounce back into profit this year after reporting significant losses.

The county council’s leadership has said while the overall profits of The Brierley Group remain lower than anticipated, the in-kind “shareholder value” of the companies to the public purse in the year to April, through savings, would be almost £6 million.

A meeting of the shareholder committee of the council, which has embraced a “culture of commercialism” to help protect frontline services, heard The Brierley Group was forecast to recorded turn last year’s £639,000 loss into a £268,000 profit for the 12 months to April.

Officers told the meeting the three months to September last year had seen “lots of ups and downs” so across the group after tax there had been a loss of £330,000 for the quarter, against a budgeted loss of £1,000.

They said the main reasons for the loss was the impact of covid-19 and struggles to retain staff.

Officers said while its educational services firm had been hit by unpredictable uptake of school meals, making it impossible to achieve the necessary economies of scale, he firm was looking at innovative ways of working “to build on that commercial success as we move into a post-covid world”.

The meeting heard roadworks company NY Highways, which launched in June last year, was set to generate a small profit, and its property services firm Align profits were expected to exceed budget and be ahead of pre-covid trading, while internet service firm NYNet had also seen a strong performance.

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However, councillors were told as its property developer firm Brierley Homes had three sites under construction at Pateley Bridge, Millwright Park and Marton cum Grafton, the group’s overall figures were being skewed by the length of time it would take to generate profits.

The meeting heard there had been challenges over getting labour and materials, which had hit the schedules, but the sites would start generating profits in the coming year.

‘A step in the right direction’

Officers said Brierley Homes were creating a business plan which would ensure a steady stream of sites and houses into the future to ensure it was regularly profitable.

Cllr Don Mackenzie, executive member for access, said: 

“This is certainly a more encouraging report than we had a year ago, and even though the outlook for the year is less profit than we hoped for it is, nevertheless, a step in the right direction.”

Councillors heard the £5.9 million of “shareholder value” was equivalent to just short of a 2% increase in the authority’s council tax demand alongside improvements in services.

The meeting was told complaints over road maintenance had dropped since the launch if NY Highways, which was also more responsive to specific issues than previous contractors.

The council’s deputy leader, Cllr Gareth Dadd, said local authorities up and down the country were looking at The Brierley Group “with envy”.

He said: 

“We are at the cutting edge of local government when it comes to matters like this and I think it is something that we should celebrate more.

“So those doom-mongers who are forever criticising the performance of the group, and we have had them, perhaps ought to take that into consideration.

“Shareholder value isn’t just about the financial returns. It’s the performance to the council as client and ultimately to the residents that we serve.

“If we did not operate the Brierley Group we would not benefit from £6m-worth of shareholder value.”

North Yorkshire County Council plans £56 council tax hike

North Yorkshire County Council looks set to approve a 3.99% rise in its council tax demand, despite its leadership acknowledging numerous residents would struggle to afford the increase.

The council’s Conservative-run executive unanimously recommended that the authority sets a £56 rise in its precept for the average Band D property.

A final decision on the council tax bill will be made at a full council meeting in February.

It means average households will have to find £1,467 to pay for the council’s bill, alongside other expected increases by Harrogate Borough Council and police and fire services.

Several members of the executive highlighted the “cost of living challenge” facing residents, and the meeting heard the squeeze on household finances was forecast to tighten.

Cllr Gareth Dadd, the authority’s executive member for finance, said the county council’s precept was “already behind the curve”, having increased by 33% over the past 11 years while inflation had risen by 38%.

He said he accepted that “there will be many that struggle” with the council tax rise, so the proposed rise would be 0.5 per cent less than the maximum the government would allow the authority to levy without holding a referendum.

Cllr Dadd said: 

“We have a moral duty both to our vulnerable and the residents and the services that we provide as well as a moral duty to look after the taxpayers’ purse. I think we’ve got to give at least a nod to that second part of the equation.”

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He said the proposed rise would enable the authority to be in the best possible shape ahead of the local government reorganisation transition to a unitary council while recognising the drain on the taxpayer.

The meeting heard sharp rises in demand for services such as children’s social care and increases in costs of providing adult social care had left the council’s finance bosses grappling with a decision over whether to “raid the reserves” or increase taxes to limit its deficit.

The executive heard while freezing council tax would be “simply irresponsible”, setting a 2.99% rise would not be in the best interests of residents or the incoming unitary authority.

However, the meeting heard claims from councillors that the authority’s recent past had seen it make a number of politically difficult decisions, putting the interests of residents in the medium term above popularity.

Calls for blanket 20mph speed limit dismissed again

Calls to introduce a default 20mph speed limit in built-up areas across North Yorkshire have again been unanimously dismissed after the highways authority said it would target road safety funding where it could make a bigger impact.

A meeting of North Yorkshire County Council’s executive saw a series of changes to the authority’s 20mph policy and agreement among all the leading councillors that a targeted approach to low speed zones be continued.

Councillors said a blanket approach could cost up to £12m to introduce, leading to a council tax hike.

The meeting heard from numerous pressure groups, parish councils and residents who claimed the authority was out of step with both a growing national and local desire to lower 30mph limits in towns and villages.

The move was backed by parish councils in the Harrogate district and prominent Harrogate environmental campaigner, Malcolm Margolis.

Ian Conlon, of the 20s Plenty for Us campaign group told the meeting some 59 parish councils in the county had voted for 20mph limits.

He said: 

“Parish councils are your eyes and ears to the ground by reporting ongoing problems.”

Mr Conlon said the authority’s policy was frustrating the key government policy of encouraging active travel, as well as affecting community cohesion.

He emphasised that perception of danger was important, rather than just accident statistics, which the council appeared to rely on.

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The meeting heard that Department for Transport figures highlighted how each fatality cost the pubic purse some £2m, and serious injuries cost about £250,000.

Monaco Grand Prix

Mick Johnston, of Thirsk and Malton Labour Party, said the council needed to undertake a “radical rethink” rather than look at old government circulars and outdated reports, and end the “interminable process of application and assessment” for residents wanting 20mph zones introduced.

After suggestions that numerous groups had been overlooked by the council’s review, officers said North Yorkshire’s policy was consistent with national guidelines and that the review had been thorough.

The authority’s opposition leader, Cllr Stuart Parsons, said police carried out no speed enforcement in the large area in Richmond that was covered by a 20mph zone.

He said: 

“On many an evening we have what seems like trial runs of the Monaco Grand Prix on the streets of Richmond.”

Cllr Parsons called on the county council to exert pressure on the police to enforce speed limits so 20mph in built-up areas could be introduced as a default.

However, the council’s executive member for access, Cllr Don Mackenzie, said the county’s roads were becoming safer and safer, and 20mph zones should only be created on a case-by-case basis.

He said the available money for road safety should be focused on exceptions, such as young and older drivers, motorcyclists, cyclists and drink and drug drivers.

He said: 

“One area where we see very few casualties and where we are very safe indeed, without being complacent, is in built-up areas and accidents caused by speed. This is an area of very, very small amounts of incidents on our roads.”

Council social care staff in Harrogate district to get £320 thank-you bonus

North Yorkshire County Council is set to distribute up to £9.2m between care firms and their staff in a bid to ease the staffing crisis.

The local authority has had to ask staff in non-critical services such as highways to help keep vulnerable people safe due to a severe shortage of care workers.

So the council’s executive will tomorrow consider match funding a £3m NHS grant to give the county’s 16,000 care sector worker a “thank-you bonus” of about £320 to recognise their efforts this winter.

The payment will effectively bring forward the national living wage increase by four months.

A meeting of the authority’s leading members will also examine a proposal to offer care firms grants of up to £40,000 to support initiatives to increase or retaining their workforces.

1,000 jobs available

The proposed moves come at a time of continuing fierce competition for the care sector in the labour market. On any given day there are at least 1,000 care sector jobs available across the county.

In the autumn, the council launched its biggest ever recruitment drive in response to declining numbers applying for social care jobs, while care providers in the county have been offering extra financial incentives to staff to take on the roles, from £1,500 golden handshakes to carers being offered £2,000 for referring three friends.

An officers’ report to the executive states:

“During 2021 it has become clear that workforce issues, specifically difficulty in recruiting and retaining front line care workers are becoming a significant issue not only for social care but also having a knock-on effect for the NHS, both in terms of the continuing health care services which it funds and in relation to availability of care to enable safe and timely hospital discharge.”

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‘Won’t fix long-term problems’

Councillor Michael Harrison, a Conservative who represents Lower Nidderdale and Bishop Monkton who is also the authority’s adult services and health executive member, said there were a host of good career opportunities in the care sector but earning the minimum wage in the care sector required a relatively high commitment from workers compared to other minimum wage jobs.

He said:

“This is effectively a bonus, a small recognition of the effort that those workers are making, but it’s not going to fix the long-term structural issues in the sector.

“It does reflect a wider realisation from central government that more needs to be done to improve the pay for the sector and particularly the people at the bottom of the pay scale. It’s a welcome start to the year, but more needs to be done to reflect the value of what those people do in their pay packet.

“We hope central government will realise they need to divert money from their new National Insurance tax that they will be raising so that it doesn’t just focus on the NHS. People are recognising that social care is an integral part of that health system.”

Welcome to Yorkshire asks for 45% more funding from councils

Councils are to consider whether to help keep Welcome to Yorkshire afloat after the troubled tourism body upped its subscription fee for local authorities by some 45 per cent.

Harrogate Borough Council and North Yorkshire County Council are among the councils paying annual subscription fees to WtY. Harrogate Borough Council paid £12,100 in July last year.

Leading councillors have responded to the increase by calling for the stream of public money that has been handed to WtY to be permanently plugged or for a decision to be postponed until options for the future direction of tourism marketing in the region are presented to the Yorkshire Leaders Board next month.

Welcome to Yorkshire at 2021 Great Yorks Show

Welcome to Yorkshire at the 2021 Great Yorkshire Show.

The tourism body has admitted making “big mistakes” in the way it spent taxpayers’ money, including spending more than £430,000 removing and investigating its former chief executive, Sir Gary Verity, following concerns over his expenses claims.

In recent years numerous local authorities have threatened to withhold funding from WtY, at a time that its finances have been hit hard by the pandemic.

Self-funded model

Lord Scriven, the former leader of Sheffield City Council, has said WtY needs to adopt a self-funded model.

Nevertheless, in October, WtY said it had sufficient funds to operate until March 31, assuming all committed subscriptions for 2021/22 are paid.

An officers’ report to a meeting of Richmondshire District Council’s corporate board on Tuesday next week states the subscription fee for local authorities was initially “modest” at £1,300 a year until 2012, when the rate was raised to £10,000.

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The cost of the subscription for next year has risen to £14,515, which WtY has justified on the basis that there had been no increase in the six previous years.

‘Nothing but scandal’

Stuart Parsons, leader of the Independents group on North Yorkshire County Council, said WtY’s page views for Richmondshire were far inferior to the privately-run Richmond Online tourism website, which was receiving one million hits a month.

He said:

“What have we been getting out of Welcome to Yorkshire? Nothing but scandal. Originally it was supposed to be immediately self-funding, but it has always relied on massive public contributions.

“Councils should not be giving any more money to an organisation that has not demonstrated it is making an effective difference to our lives and our economy.”

The county council’s finance boss, Councillor Gareth Dadd, said the authority would examine any request for funding from WtY “in the light of its performance and our ability to pay”.

He added:

“There is most definitely an advantage of having a tourism marketing body.”

‘Bold and brave’ changes to prevent second homes in Dales

“Bold and brave” changes to planning rules that aim to prevent Yorkshire Dales houses becoming second homes and holiday lets have been approved.

Members of Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority signalled their determination to get to grips with the high-profile housing crisis across much of the 2,179 square km area and gave the green light to several key changes to the body’s forthcoming Local Plan blueprint.

The decision follows years of debate over which of the park’s estimated 2,000 traditional stone barns should be conserved and how to create sufficient new housing for local people to remain living in the area, parts of which have seen property prices rise by some 20% this year.

Earlier this year it emerged some 3,100 of the national park’s 12,000 properties had become holiday lets and second homes, and the number was rising, as the pandemic had accelerated a trend for rural relocations among wealthy and retired people.

The meeting heard although some 150 potential sites for housing were currently being considered, continuing to permit barn conversions in settlements, building groups and roadside locations could make a significant difference to housing supply.

However, members said in future the conversions should only be allowed for holiday letting as part of farm diversification schemes.

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Officers told the meeting extending the area restricting occupancy of new homes to local people to the whole of the national park and making the criteria for occupancy more favourable to attracting new households would benefit the local economy.

Other key changes agreed include that local occupancy restrictions could form part of the housing mix on larger sites and that a principal residence restriction should be introduced on new housing, to stop properties becoming holiday lets or second homes.

Ring-fencing homes for local people

A meeting of the authority, held at Tennants in Leyburn, heard that despite concerns permitting traditional agricultural building conversions over the last six years had seen only a small proportion of new homes for locals, relaxing the planning rules had boosted the park’s heritage.

Neil Heseltine, the authority’s chairman, described some of the recommendations as being “bold and brave”, as the meeting heard further action was needed to help increase the housing stock ring-fenced for local people.

Recreation champion for the authority, Nick Cotton, said while almost 200 barns had been permitted for residential conversion since the policy was extended in 2015, only 42, or 20% of them had been completed over the six years.

He said: 

“We are giving plenty of permissions, they just aren’t being taken up.”

Nevertheless, Jim Munday, the authority’s member champion for development management, said the policy over barns needed to remain largely unchanged because it had proved to be successful in conserving derelict traditional buildings.

He said barn conversions had contributed 40 per cent of the homes to the authority’s housing targets over the past four years.

Mr Munday said: 

“Let’s not forget 94 per cent of planning applications for barns have been approved. It’s that six per cent that aren’t that hit the headlines. I don’t know why.”

North Yorkshire parish councils will not have to cover early election costs

The leader of a council undergoing its biggest transformation in almost half a century has said “common sense has prevailed” after all seven of North Yorkshire’s borough and district councils have agreed to fund next year’s parish council elections.

North Yorkshire County Council leader Councillor Carl Les was speaking after it emerged Richmondshire District Council had joined the six other second-tier authorities in the county in taking on the extraordinary and unexpected cost of parish council elections next year.

It had previously been agreed parish councils with contested seats should hold their elections a year early next May to bring their polls into line with ones for North Yorkshire’s new unitary authority and save taxpayers money.

However, parish councils had been told some by some district authorities they would face charges for the election despite having little time to raise funding.

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Some parishes had stated due to their lack of resources they faced having to double their tax demand from residents to cover the election, which it was claimed had been “foisted” on them by the county council.

Despite the potential charges being levied by district and borough councils, the county council’s leader Coun Les had faced pressure to ensure parishes did not go into the red.

Cllr Les said

“It will be for the new unitary authority to decide whether they charge parish councils in future, once it becomes into being, but I would hope this sets a good precedent.”

County council opposition leader Councillor Stuart Parsons said it had been disappointing that a campaign had been necessary to ensure parishes were not burdened with the costs.

Harrogate councillor calls for campaign to make class A drugs ‘shameful’

A fresh education campaign, with a similar message to the anti drink-driving stance embedded in the 1970s, is needed to teach children that taking class A drugs is “shameful”, a meeting has heard.

North Yorkshire has seen a significant rise in complex child death cases, such as drug-related ones over 2020/21 and analysis is being undertaken to examine why.

In a report to a meeting of North Yorkshire County Council’s young people scrutiny committee, the Child Death Overview Panel chair Anita Dobson said over the last year the panel was “mindful of an increase in drug-related deaths”.

She said it was thought the rise “may well be an indication of reduced mental wellbeing amongst young people, for which coronavirus could be a contributing factor” and that the panel would monitor the situation closely.

The concerns follow pledges by North Yorkshire and York’s past and present police, fire and crime commissioners to prioritise tackling county lines drug dealing gangs, which often target children, particularly in Harrogate and Scarborough.

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Councillors were told there had already been “a lot of work in educating children and young people directly” as well as parents and carers, to ensure people were aware of the risks of taking class A drugs.

Harrogate Central councillor John Mann told the meeting as well as tackling the supply of class A drugs, efforts to reduce demand for them were needed as “without the demand there would be no supply”.

He suggested an education drive, using a similar antisocial message to the 1970s drink-driving campaign, was required.

Cllr Mann said:

“As a local authority and as a country we need to try to reduce the demand and make it shameful to take class A drugs because we all have wider responsibilities as citizens.”

‘Complex situation’

After the meeting, the authority’s children’s services executive member, Cllr Janet Sanderson, said she agreed with making taking class A drugs socially unacceptable.

She said:

“We have to get the view of the young people out on the streets who are being tempted by these things and probably deal with an innovative approach to tackle it.

“In the 1970s it was normal to drink-drive. And then all of a sudden if you drove at 32mph in a 30mph area they stopped you and breathalysed you and it stopped it overnight.

“However, I can’t see that is going to be a straight lift and shift scenario with drugs because you can see people driving on the road, but drugs are more covert.

“With county lines we are looking at the people who are often selling the drugs also being the victims. It’s a hugely complex situation. We have got some good people working on this and some innovative ideas, but it is not going to be one single solution like naming and shaming.”