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Released on 11 January 2010
Cllr Alan Cockburn, Warwickshire County Council's Portfolio Holder for the Environment, said: "There are understandable concerns in Warwickshire about grit levels following extensive media coverage about diminishing road salt
supplies throughout the British mainland.
"There have been reports today that local authorities are reducing gritting routes by 25 per cent, however, I would like to reassure Warwickshire's residents that all of our primary gritting routes will continue to be covered. This is more than 1,700 km of Warwickshire roads.
"In order to preserve stocks we took the decision late last week to only grit the primary routes in Warwickshire, which are the normal gritting routes. Secondary routes, spot gritting and grit bin filling will not be undertaken until further notice - and this provides us with the 25 per cent reduction the government is calling for.
"We are taking many steps in Warwickshire to protect our resilience and road salt stocks. We have received some alternative supplies of industrial salt and grit and will continue to investigate all other available options.
"In Warwickshire we started with 9,500 tonnes in stock, enough to grit our roads 79 times at 10g/metre which in a normal winter is the rate we would use. As we grit our roads on average 52 times a year we had over 150 per cent in stock at a value of £250,000. Up until three weeks ago I would have thought that was not an unreasonable amount of salt to have.
"We joined councils from around the country in learning the lessons from February last year and stockpiled more salt - despite forecasts of a mild winter. However, after the longest cold snap for 30 years and continued bad weather for 21 days, it is not surprising that we have to look closely at our resilience.
"We will continue to monitor weather conditions in close liaison with the Met Office.
"The Department for Transport has convened 'Salt Cell', which will provide advice to the salt companies on how to prioritise their deliveries and facilitate mutual aid agreements.
"The Salt Cell is convened by the Department for Transport and includes the Cabinet Office, the LGA, the Highways Agency and the devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales. It assesses which areas of the country need salt the most and make recommendations to the suppliers accordingly.
"If a council is running low on salt, it can enter into a mutual aid agreement with a neighbouring authority that has larger supplies - or the Highways Agency - to ensure everyone has enough.
"Some may ask whether we should have kept more salt in stock, well as I've already said we learned the lessons from the bad weather last February and started planning as far back as the summer to ensure we had sufficient supplies of salt in stock. In making these decisions about how much to stockpile, we have to take into account the cost of the grit itself, and also the storage costs, maintaining the warehouses and security. The Met Office originally predicted that there was only a one in seven chance of a cold winter in 2009/10.
"Last month, the Government recommended that councils should have enough salt to last six days of cold weather. It is clear, now that the cold snap is into its third week and no councils have yet run out of salt, that this requirement was met by local authorities.
"For the latest information on travel and other services during this period of weather visit www.warwickshire.gov.uk/snow
"I would also like to remind people of the hard work going on behind the scenes to try and keep Warwickshire's roads clear. We have gritter drivers heading out several times a day, often in the early hours of the morning. Hopefully everyone will continue to heed the advice of the Met Office and emergency services and only travel if they have to, and if they do have to, to take care."
Contact details
For further details contact
Warwickshire County Council
Tel: 01926 410410
Commenting on this news story has been closed.
I would like to congratulate Warwickshire CC on their gritting/ploughing of the A423 from Ladbroke to the county border. I travelled on it at 2.30 pm on 6/1 and the road was clear of snow and ice however, their neighbours Oxfordshire CC had done nothing and the road into Banbury and Banbury itself was very dangerous covered in snow and ice. I have complained to them and pointed out that if you could do it why couldn't they? We do appreciate the crews who go out in all weathers during the nights to keep the roads safe for us to use. My only negative comment is to change where you get the weather forecasts from, the Met Office has proved to be totally inept. They predicted a barbecue summer, then a mild winter and they use discredited data on their website to promote the unproved theory of global warming, not to be trusted.
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