Changes planned at busy York junctions

SAFETY improvements are set to be carried out at two of York’s busiest junctions, which have been identified as accident blackspots.

City transport bosses plan to make changes at the Fishergate Gyratory, where a woman was killed five years ago, and at the junction of St Leonard’s Place, Bootham and Gillygate.

The Fishergate work would cost about £200,000 and would involve improving pedestrian crossings at the Fishergate/Paragon Street and Paragon Street/Fawcett Street junctions as well as workingon local pavements. The work is also designed to make it safer for people walking to the Barbican centre, which reopened last year.

In 2007, 22-year-old Lucie Brabyn died after being struck by a taxi at the junction, leading to calls for safety upgrades on the route. The amount of money available for the work in 2011/12 was cut amid spending reductions and because council officers said more analysis was needed.

Coun Dave Merrett, City of York Council’s cabinet member for transport issues, will be asked to approve the plans at a meeting next Mondayand at the same meeting will also be asked to approve £4,000 of “interim” improvements to signs and markings at the junction next to Exhibition Square and Bootham Bar, where there have been nine injury accidents in the past three years.

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Guildhall councillors Janet Looker and Brian Watson say larger-scale works should be carried out, but the council has said wider improvements are planned in 2014 as part of its Reinvigorate York city-centre facelift.

A report on the Fishergate plans by council engineer Roger Webster said: “The proposed pedestrian crossing and footway improvements are intended to make it safer for pedestrians to access the reopened Barbican venue, particularly those using St George’s Field car park.

“There is a long-standing commitment to provide these improvements and the scheme seeks to address specific safety concerns in the area.”

The St Leonard’s Place/Gillygate/Bootham proposals include more space for cyclists in an “advance stop-line box” on Bootham, removing “unnecessary” sections of guardrail, adding another set of St Leonard’s Place road markings which indicate destinations and also moving a direction sign which is often hidden by tree branches. Council engineer Louise Robinson said in a report:

“These proposals have been kept minor and low-cost, but will hopefully provide some improvement to the accident rate in the interim period [before any Reinvigorate York work].”

Away Team | Everton vs Mackems | Saturday 10th November 2012 | Blue Kipper

Away Team | Everton vs Mackems | Saturday 10th November 2012 | Blue Kipper

Knavesmire chiefs unveil £5 million redevelopment plans for York Racecourse

An artist’s impression of York Racecourse’s parade ring showing the new features of a proposed £5 million redevelopment scheme

A £5 MILLION development of the northern end of York Racecourse has been unveiled today.

As first reported last week, the project, which will be phased over several years subject to a successful consultation period and planning permissions, would transform the facilities for horses, jockeys and officials as well as providing new areas for racegoers to meet, drink and view the action.

The existing pre-parade ring would be moved to the area where the saddling boxes are currently situated. New boxes would be created around this pre-parade zone, along with a wash down area and a two storey weighing room overlooking the existing parade ring.

Racecourse chiefs said that following a “review of operations and consultation with racing professionals, there is a desire to further improve the facilities for the world-class horses that visit York as well as for those who look after them, ride them and come to see them”.

The racecourse have held discussions with City of York Council, their landlord, which have led to a proposal to vary their existing lease and realign the northern perimeter wall. The third of an acre of extra land this produces is key to accommodating the improved equine area.

Related links

• York Racecourse's £5 million redevelopment scheme

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The extra space then created by moving the pre-parade ring would also allow the revamp of the track’s Moet Pavilion, Champagne lawn and existing weighing room – an early 20th Century listed building which is likely to be a new restaurant.

William Derby, chief executive and clerk of the course, said: “I hope these proposed plans demonstrate York wants to keep improving, to offer the best for horses, for horsemen and for fans of the sport. Wonderful though it was to be able to welcome Frankel, the best racehorse in the world, as well as the 30,000 people intent on seeing him, to York, it did reinforce to me we can improve things.

“We have recently invested in the track, the stables, the stands, facilities for racegoers and other areas of the racecourse so it feels right to turn our intention to areas that last saw a major change over 100 years ago. I’d hope that by keeping on improving we will keep attracting the best horses to York. That can only be a good thing for the profile and economy of both York Racecourse and the city.”

Drunken joyride of boy aged 15

A 15-YEAR-OLD took his father’s car and went on a drunken joyride through York, leaving a father-of-two with life-changing injuries in a hit-and-run crash.

The teenager, who has now been locked up, downed six cans of lager and a bottle of another alcoholic drink one day in July and later admitted being “out of his head” when he took his father’s red Seat.

He knocked over chef Pawel Nahorniak, 39, who was cycling home along Bishopthorpe Road to his son and daughter.

The court heard the teenager was mourning the second anniversary of a family tragedy. Mr Nahorniak said in a statement read to the court: “I heard the roar of an engine. I turned my head and I felt the car hit me. I remember I fell on to the car. That is when I banged my head and I fell on to the road. The driver rammed me and did not even ask if I was dead or alive. He did not care.”

The accident happened near the junction with Charlton Street.

Witnesses reported seeing Mr Nahorniak fly through the air before landing in the road, the court heard.

The teenager then continued down Bishopthorpe Road before crashing into a parked transit van and flipping the car on to its roof, said Gill Sandall, prosecuting.

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A breath test showed he was three times the drink-drive limit. A taxi driver said that moments earlier the teenager overtook his taxi by driving on a footpath.

Mr Nahorniak suffered serious head, neck and wrist injuries, including a shattered vertebra which required surgery.

He had a disc at the bottom of his back removed and a metal plate inserted. He spent more than a week in hospital and was left with his arm in a cast and in a back brace.

Mr Nahorniak said his injuries also left him with numbness in his left hand, jeopardising his future as a chef at Strada Italian restaurant in Petergate.

He also suffered a broken tooth and injuries to his chin and said his family had suffered financial difficulty as he had been unable to work.

“My life has been put on hold through no fault of my own,” he said.

Pippa Carruthers, for the teenager, said the incident was a “cry for help” from someone “struggling to cope with a very emotional event”.

“It was highly reckless on his behalf. He showed a disregard for the safety of others but also a worrying disregard for his own safety,” she said.

She said the teenager did not know he had hit the cyclist, later confessing he was “out of his head” on alcohol.

The boy appeared before York magistrates on charges including dangerous driving, taking a car without the owner’s consent, drink driving, failing to stop after a collision and failing to provide a breath specimen test. He had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing.

The teenager said in court: “I just want to apologise for what I have done. I just want life to go back to how it was.”

He was given a four-month sentence in a detention centre and a three-year driving ban. Magistrates said: “The accident has caused very serious and life-changing injuries for the victim.”

York's iconic Bile Beans sign gets facelift

WORK has started to give a unique piece of York heritage a much-needed facelift.

Following an appeal for funds to pay for the repainting of the iconic Bile Beans sign on the side of a building on Lord Mayor's Walk, the money was raised within weeks and was yesterday underway.

The request for help was sent out through The Press by York Civic Trust chairman Sir Ron Cooke after the cost of repainting the peeling sign was estimated at £1,600.

His colleague, director at the civic trust, Peter Brown said: “We are delighted that the people of York have responded so positively. It puts a smile on your face when you go past it.

“It was absolutely right we should restore it and it proves to us the people of York care about their environment and are willing to put their hands in their pockets to support it.”

Famous clock at St Martin-le-Grand Church in Coney Street, York, back in place soon

ONE of York’s most famous clocks should finally be back in place by the beginning of September – when it will chime the quarter hour for the first time since the war.
The distinctive timepiece which normally juts out from St Martin-le-Grand Church in Coney Street was removed with the help of a crane last November for its biggest overhaul since 1966.
It was originally hoped it would be back in place by the 70th anniversary of the church’s destruction in the “Baedeker” bombing raid of April 1942, and then by the time of The Queen’s visit to the city, but its restoration has been hit by a series of technical delays.
However, churchwarden Andrew Hingston revealed yesterday plans have now been drawn up for the huge bracket to be returned in the early hours of Sunday, September 2, all being well.
He said a street closure and a crane had been booked. The vehicle was so wide even pedestrians would have to squeeze past, so a time had been chosen when there were few people about.

It is planned for the Archdeacon of York, the Venerable Richard Seed, to give the clock a blessing at about 11.50am on Monday, September 3.
Mr Hingston said Andrew Carter had written the new quarter chimes for the clock, which had not chimed the quarter hour since the raid 70 years ago. He said it had briefly chimed the hour in 1966, but the nightwatchman at the then Yorkshire Evening Press, situated in those days in Coney Street, complained that the noise was keeping him awake and the chimes were switched off.
The latest repairs, costing tens of thousands of pounds, have been needed because of wear and tear, particularly following the harsh weather of December 2010.

The work has been more complex than originally expected and unforeseen problems have arisen, including sickness at the specialist firm carrying out the project, while a wooden representation of Father Time, which looked in good condition from the outside, turned out to be rotten within.

Lorry driver flown to hospital after bridge crash on A64 near Malton

A LORRY driver whose 30-tonne HGV smashed into a bridge on the A64 was last night sitting up in hospital, having walked away from this devastating wreckage without serious injury. The vehicle, which was carrying grain, hit the Castle Howard flyover two miles from Malton at about 2.25pm yesterday, causing extensive damage and closing the westbound carriageway. The Yorkshire Air Ambulance was called and police said they feared the worst. But although the lorry was very badly damaged, its driver escaped life-threatening injury and was last night said by 999 sources to be sitting up in bed and talking. Chief Inspector Ian Thompson said: “The vehicles are very well made and are meant to take the impact and collapse to protect the driver. “From what we first saw we were expecting it to be much more serious which is why the air ambulance was sent. It’s a very happy ending.” The driver was out of the vehicle by the time firefighters arrived and was able to talk to police at the scene. The eastbound carriageway was temporarily closed to allow the air ambulance to land and to airlift the man to York Hospital, but quickly reopened. The westbound carriageway remained closed well into the evening. The lorry driver, whose vehicle was from Clive Warcup hauliers near Driffield, was treated for a cut to his head and abdominal pains, a police spokesman said. No other vehicles or people were involved in the crash. An engineer was sent to check for any structural damage to the bridge, which was found to be safe, a police spokesman said.