City of York Council spent £2,865 to clear mess at Osbaldwick Travellers’ site - Yorkshire

From the Press

COUNCIL officials organised a costly clear-up of a York Travellers’ site before an important inspection, a Freedom of Information request has revealed.

Emails between City of York Council staff show the effort they put into ensuring the Osbaldwick site was in a “fit state”, and looked “as well managed as possible”, before the visit by the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA).

The visit was organised after York Outer MP Julian Sturdy complained to ministers earlier this year that the site had been poorly run by the council for years, and said residents feared an HCA grant of almost £350,000 towards the £628,000 cost of a proposed site expansion would exacerbate problems.

The documents show the clear-up cost £2,865. One official said in an email to a colleague: “As money seems to be no object, are you in charge of the litter pickers as well? If so, any chance of someone going down and picking litter on the road entrance to the site, say a 100-metre run up to the site?”

Another said: “It is in everyone’s interests and important to the success of the development that the site looks as well managed as possible, so that the HCA feels assured and can respond positively to any future complaints and queries.”

The official also conceded: “We do not have a sustainable model for managing this site currently.”

Osbaldwick councillor Mark Warters, who obtained the emails through an FoI request, claimed they showed the council had been engaged in a whitewash operation designed to convince HCA that the site was well-managed.

Mr Sturdy said he was “deeply concerned”, claiming: “To me, the emails clearly show that the council has been trying to take, not only the HCA, but also local residents and their elected representatives, for fools.

“At a time when central government and a number of local authorities are taking really tough decisions to ensure their services are both efficient and cost- effective, I find the council’s ‘money seems to be no object’ approach to this clean-up operation to be abhorrent.”

But Sally Burns, director of communities and neighbourhoods, said: “As would be the case with any inspection, we do our best to prepare fully in advance and this instance was no exception.

“In response to our new Gypsy and Traveller Strategy and our acknowledgement of problems with rubbish on and around this site, we are drafting a new site management plan which addresses matters including new licensing agreements, more routine rubbish collection and recycling, as well as increased work to engage site tenants with these issues.”