City centre makeover for York

8:40am Monday 18th February 2013 in News Photograph of the Author By Kate Liptrot, kate.liptrot@thepress.co.uk

YORK will be given a mini makeover from today as part of a £200,000 initiative to reinvigorate the city centre.

Lighting, seating and bollards will be either restored, refurbished, removed or replaced as part of the Reinvigorate York initiative, which is funded by City of York Council.

The initial phase of work due to be carried out over the next few weeks will see new lanterns installed on Lendal Bridge, in Petergate, in Colliergate and in Stonegate.

The lanterns will be “appropriate” to the historic environment following a “lighting design study” by consultants Sutton Vane Associates.

Existing lights will be replaced with new LED and metal halide lights to produce a more natural light, a council spokesman said.

Coun Dave Merrett, cabinet member for transport, planning and sustainability, said: “These works are just a few of the projects currently taking place in the city centre to improve and enhance the quality of the city’s public spaces.

“Along with the council’s investment in the York Minster Revealed project, which ties into our Reinvigorate York initiative to redesign Exhibition Square and improve and enhance the quality of the city’s other public spaces like King’s Square, we are also supporting and investing in York Art Gallery and the refurbishment of St Leonard’s Place to transform this part of the city into a high quality cultural hub for York.”

Forty new seats will include a number with only one arm, allowing easier access to people who use wheelchairs. They will also offer more upright seating to aid and support older and disabled people and wheelchair users, the council said. A number of bollards will be removed which are no longer required and existing bollards will be replaced.

Comments(25)

working class tory says...
8:57pm Sun 17 Feb 13

Bound to have the business generating effect the project is supposed to do. Not!

How absolutely pathetic. This Labour council might as well just throw the money into the Ouse for what difference it will make. What are they doing to get businesses into properties in the city centre?

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notmyrealname says...
9:30pm Sun 17 Feb 13

Well its a start - positive thinking please - !!

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Osoman123 says...
9:38pm Sun 17 Feb 13

How stupid. Bring back the rubbish bins please and don't waste our, ie. Council Tax Paying Residents money on this proposal obviously designed at pleasing the tourists.
'Appropriate to the historic environment eh?' .....Yes right, why not hire people to throw buckets of faeces out of windows onto the already filthy streets to accentuate the authentic historic experience?

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AnotherPointofView says...
10:14pm Sun 17 Feb 13

There are a load of circular "20" signs that are a waste of time in Southbank that could do with being removed...

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neutral observer 2 says...
2:50am Mon 18 Feb 13

notmyrealname wrote:
Well its a start - positive thinking please - !!
Good luck.

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notmyrealname says...
8:22am Mon 18 Feb 13

neutral observer 2 wrote:
notmyrealname wrote:
Well its a start - positive thinking please - !!
Good luck.
i was joking really.... they could spend some of it clearing last autumn's leaves from Scarcroft road - 4 inch deep leaf mulch when you get out of your car is not pleasant and now all the drains are blocked

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Woody G Mellor says...
9:47am Mon 18 Feb 13

AnotherPointofView wrote:
There are a load of circular "20" signs that are a waste of time in Southbank that could do with being removed...
Spot on.

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ReginaldBiscuit says...
10:11am Mon 18 Feb 13

Don't forget. Business Speak is the language of idiots. Where few words will do, BS will generate paragraphs and paragraphs of ambiguously undecipherable personal rhetoric. Even Dave "The Mexican" Merrett is at it.

"These works are just a few of the projects currently taking place in the city centre to improve and enhance the quality of the city’s public spaces."

Tuco Merrett has some flexibility but BS sounds even worse when labour or LibDem politicians start espousing in this chocolate fireguard of a language. The anachronistic lizard party of the conservatives speak nothing else. Why, even Pob Gove would try and make this utter nonsense of a language part of the national curriculum if he got chance. While Gove is attempting to turn education in this country back 60 years, I have a great suggestion as to where he can 'shove' his creationist manifesto of 40,000 King James Bibles.

Anyway, £200,000 is 1 and a third the current Chief Exec's payslip. Maybe it should be invested in another waste of taxpayers money such as another Chief Exec. Then she'd have a friend and they could converse in Business Speak together. For the money though, I'd rather have Kersten Dunst for a few days a year. As honorary Chief Exec, she'd give the City far more global publicity and standing than Ms En-ger-land could manage in a 1000 years of lifetimes.

Tally-ho.

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Turpinette says...
11:45am Mon 18 Feb 13

When did High Petergate and Low Petergate get renamed as just Petergate?

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Kevin Turvey says...
11:51am Mon 18 Feb 13

‘Lighting, seating and bollards will be either restored, refurbished, removed or replaced as part of the Reinvigorate York initiative’

Only the over staffed and over imaginative PR department at York council could polish up essential maintenance on street furniture into a ‘Reinvigorate York initiative’.

This is standard public services that a council should be undertaking anyway not an additional improvement project to get tourists to come.

Polishing Tvrds yet again!


‘The lanterns will be “appropriate” to the historic environment following a “lighting design study” by consultants Sutton Vane Associates. ‘

So even on standard maintenance works further money is wasted by getting in consultants to say that the old style street lighting looks old!


Its long past time for James Alexander to resign!

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TheTruthHurts says...
12:05pm Mon 18 Feb 13

A good clean would be the best starting point

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over 9000 says...
12:32pm Mon 18 Feb 13

TheTruthHurts wrote:
A good clean would be the best starting point
Starting with CYC HQ!

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Stevie D says...
12:32pm Mon 18 Feb 13

Seats that are suitable for wheelchair-users ... I might be missing something here but aren't they already in a seat?

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metsaagain says...
12:43pm Mon 18 Feb 13

they just need to keep the place clean- properly clean- not just picking up litter- but deep cleaning all the years of accumulated gack and gunk that surrounds every bin/lamp post/telephone box in the town centre.

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alfie says...
2:00pm Mon 18 Feb 13

This is just for the benefit of the tour de france thingy.

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yorkielass says...
2:08pm Mon 18 Feb 13

This all beggars belief, when there are so many council cuts, and raising the council tax when so many are struggling. Get your priorities right CYC.

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Theoutsider21 says...
2:31pm Mon 18 Feb 13

Well it will be somewhere for the chief to sleep when he is kicked out and becomes homeless - so of course he wants nice seats!

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Candy Cupcake says...
3:08pm Mon 18 Feb 13

what about cheaper buses and parking charges to get people using the City.... just too expensive to go anymore.

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RoseD says...
8:28pm Mon 18 Feb 13

Candy Cupcake wrote:
what about cheaper buses and parking charges to get people using the City.... just too expensive to go anymore.
YES.

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capt spaulding says...
10:36pm Mon 18 Feb 13

ReginaldBiscuit wrote:
Don't forget. Business Speak is the language of idiots. Where few words will do, BS will generate paragraphs and paragraphs of ambiguously undecipherable personal rhetoric. Even Dave "The Mexican" Merrett is at it.

"These works are just a few of the projects currently taking place in the city centre to improve and enhance the quality of the city’s public spaces."

Tuco Merrett has some flexibility but BS sounds even worse when labour or LibDem politicians start espousing in this chocolate fireguard of a language. The anachronistic lizard party of the conservatives speak nothing else. Why, even Pob Gove would try and make this utter nonsense of a language part of the national curriculum if he got chance. While Gove is attempting to turn education in this country back 60 years, I have a great suggestion as to where he can 'shove' his creationist manifesto of 40,000 King James Bibles.

Anyway, £200,000 is 1 and a third the current Chief Exec's payslip. Maybe it should be invested in another waste of taxpayers money such as another Chief Exec. Then she'd have a friend and they could converse in Business Speak together. For the money though, I'd rather have Kersten Dunst for a few days a year. As honorary Chief Exec, she'd give the City far more global publicity and standing than Ms En-ger-land could manage in a 1000 years of lifetimes.

Tally-ho.
Dave the Mexican Merritt ?????

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yorkborn66 says...
10:48pm Mon 18 Feb 13

Mr.Merrett, any chance of the citizens of York seeing a breakdown of costs and tendering for £200.000 of unnecessary work before us council taxpayers have to pay for this?

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Magicman! says...
1:23am Tue 19 Feb 13

Well at least at night these streets will be lit in white and not orange. Amey changed the rest of the lights over last year, and the streets mentioned above have stood out like a sore thumb at night ever since. Compared to white light, orange sodium lighting is offensive to my eyes!

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hikerman says...
9:46am Tue 19 Feb 13

Just like the litter bin gone from the city centre Rawcliffe Bar Country Park dog bins have been removed i walked my dogs the first time for ages on there not one bin was on the park dog muck not picked up it was disgracefull this is a health hazard to children playing where was the councils environmental health department when the bins was removed.

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m dee says...
11:09am Tue 19 Feb 13

The lanterns will be “appropriate” to the historic environment following a “lighting design study” by consultants Sutton Vane Associates.

Why are they paying consultants for this when the council is struggling to keep basic services afloat ?.

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Magicman! says...
3:13am Fri 22 Feb 13

I just hope some thought has gone in to putting up lanterns that do look the part, not just some run-of-the-mill fake victorian things that seem to be in every town and city in the country wherever the "old look" might be appropriate.

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