Detailed update on Council response to snow Tuesday evening

This email sent to all councillors by senior Council managers just now is worth passing on in its entirety, showing as it does the scale of operation being undertaken to deal with the snow and the effort being put in by all concerned.

Dear Councillor,

Further to the update this morning, we have received several emails from councillors pointing out problems with gritting on roads, pavements and on housing estates. We have responded to these problems individually.

The weather storm yesterday evening and early this morning was not forecasted. Its severity made it impossible to deal with the problems as quickly and effectively as any of us would have liked. We spent most of yesterday gritting priority roads and pavements but the evening rain washed much of this away, then the roads became gridlocked which made it impossible to put more grit down until much later in the evening. Police assisted staff who worked throughout the night to re-grit the roads.

We have used every single resource at our disposal to deal with this emergency and you will see from the media coverage that councils affected by the weather across the country are experiencing similar, and in many cases worse, problems. Over 200 staff have been working on this as a priority using five gritters, 12 cage vehicles and spreading over 400 tonnes of grit . All the decisions about which roads and pavements to grit have been made in line with our winter maintenance plan.

Today, Veolia has continued to use both morning and afternoon street cleansing shifts to clear snow and ice from footways across the borough. This has included all town centres, main roads, and high footfall areas such as outside hospitals, libraries and doctors’ surgeries. We have not been able to remove snow and ice from minor roads and pavements, and these areas remain a lower priority. All our gritting lorries have continued to grit main roads, bus routes and other high priority areas and they are now being prepared to go out again tonight.

Refuse and recycling crews have managed to complete the majority of collections, with additional resources being used to help deal with delays. Where crews have not been able to gain access, these collections will be prioritised for tomorrow.

The forecast for tonight is for sub zero temperatures, remaining dry with rain turning to sleet in the morning. We will continue with our strategy to grit priority routes and high footfall pavements.

Our priority for housing estates has been to grit pathways and walkways as most roads in estates are not priority routes. All requests for gritting pathways and walkways in estates should be made to district housing offices.

We understand residents will contact you complaining that roads and pavements have not been gritted and we appreciate this is difficult to deal with. However, it would be helpful if you could explain that we are doing everything possible to deal with the extreme weather conditions and this means making difficult decisions about priorities and use of resources.

We will continue to keep you updated.