New snow update as of Tuesday morning

Here's a further update on snow clearing and related streets/parking matters in Camden, with some personal comments from me at the end.

Our contractor Veolia's gritting crews and the Council's winter maintenance team worked throughout last night to grit the borough’s main roads. There was a specific problem that gritting from earlier on during Monday actually got washed away by rain and re-gritting last night was very challenging for them. All routes out of the borough were clear of traffic congestion by 10pm, following police support in providing traffic control in hotspot areas. This morning these routes are all open and traffic is moving.

On parking, the Council will enforce parking restrictions on all main roads and bus routes, and all roads south of Euston Road. We will not carry out any removals, but abandoned vehicles on main roads in obstructive positions will be relocated to side roads, with no charge. We will not be enforcing in side roads north of Euston Road. This will stand for the whole day.

All street cleansing teams are involved in removing snow and ice from high priority and high footfall pavement areas. Some side roads and many other lower footfall pavements will remain ungritted as we must prioritise the use of salt and grit.

We have received additional salt and grit supplies this morning as well as having access to further stocks of salt at Veolia’s depot in Brent.

We expect disruption to domestic and commercial waste and recycling services today, particularly where safe access for vehicles and crews is not possible.

All parks and open spaces are open.

There will be regular updates on www.camden.gov.uk

Just to add - the Council has responded to hundreds of specific requests for gritting/salting. Of course there have been some criticisms, and no system is ever perfect or incapable of improvement. But we must be a bit realistic I think about snow - we can't simply negate all its effects instantly. And if Camden was to maintain the snow-clearing fleet etc that Winnipeg has, we'd rightly be criticised for wasting money. In fact, the shift from Veolia's regular street cleansing role to gritting and salting has worked pretty smoothly overall, and we should certainly recognise the contribution of all those who have just been working through the night in the snow. But please do let us know what you think, especially urgent requests and constructive feedback.