Monday's Cabinet meeting received an initial report about the issues that developed as a result from the effects of the adverse weather conditions due to unexpected, exceptional snowfall.
Firstly the Cabinet and other parties wholeheartedly thanked the excellent work staff from the council, other agencies, the voluntary sector and business in attempting to keep services going as normal throughout the period and to clear the public highways and pavements clear of snow. Whilst there were numerous complaints and concerns about the town's preparedness for the exceptional adverse weather it is important to note that many services were able to continue as normal due to the hard working staff and volunteers.
The Cabinet agreed to review as a priority the role and co-ordination of services in the council's management of major adverse weather events. Communication with the public, particularly in the first major bout of snow on 21 December 2009 as there are lessons to be learnt. Whilst there was an acknowledgement that there was limitations of the council to deal with heavy snow during the height of the Christmas shopping period and during a normal working day it is important to add that most towns in the South East of England suffered similar experiences with shoppers, and workers stranded by the major snow fall and motorists had to abandon their vehicles. I could not get home from Slough and I had to spend an expensive cold night in a Travelodge, which was better than being stuck in a car with nowhere to go.
Whilst all A and B roads were gritted well throughout the period of bad weather, secondary routes and pavements did often miss out on gritting. Discussion should continue about gritting bins as many members of the public believe the bins were left empty. However, there were reports of grit being "stolen" from the bins.
I believe there was underestimation of goodwill amongst the people of Reading who helped motorists stuck in the snow and who helped clear roads near to schools and outside their pavements despite some media stories about the threat of being sued if someone were to fall on the path that was cleared of snow by a resident.
The council scrutiny process will play a central role in raising issues and ensuring changes are made to any future council management of adverse weather. I hope the discussion does not become too party political or "council bashing" as contrary to the perception of some, it did snow on Tory councils as well.
Hello John,
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the world of blogging.
I have added a link to your blog from mine.
Best wishes
Rob White
Hello John and welcome to the land of blog!
ReplyDeleteSnow is definitely a good place to start....very topical you might say.
There are indeed lessons to be learned from the recent events.
The first, I would say, is to get the ploughs out and working as soon as the snow begins to cover the roads. This wouldn't have made much difference for the snow on the 21st (Prior gritting could have helped a bit though), but the heavy snowfall soon into the new year was altogether a different thing.
As you know this started at about 5.30 and snow fell for a few hours at the rate of about an inch per hour. I had cause to be out and about around the town that evening and I can report that there was nothing going on so far as ploughing or gritting until about midnight by which time about 6" of snow had fallen.
When you talk of dealing with the main roads first ,they don't come much more main than the IDR, Caversham rd, Oxford rd.
If the ploughs had been out early in the evening all the main roads would have been just fine by the next morning, leaving the ploughs available to start to deal with the not so major,but still important, other roads.
Lessons definitely need to be learned on this subject, because this could very easily happen again next week ,or month!