The Tory councillor in charge of roads and pavements has admitted the County Council is no longer filling salt bins. Salt bins are placed in notorious black spots all round the country to allow residents to scatter the salt on roads that will not be covered by the county council’s gritting operation.
Liberal Democrat Leader Chris White said: ‘This is a dangerous game of “Russian Roulette”. We realise the country is short of salt, as a result of a foolish cost saving exercise that has bitten many councils hard. But to stop filling bins in known accident hot spots is dangerous.’
Chris White added: ‘When this is over we really need the post mortem to have more teeth than last years. We need to increase our salt storage in order to keep residents safe.’
ENDS
EMAIL from Stuart Pile
From: Stuart Pile
Sent: 07/01/2010 10:30 GMT
To: “Martin Frearson”
Cc: Chris White; Robert Gordon
Subject: Re: gritting St Albans South
Dear Martin,
Thank you for your email. It is good to hear that main roads are open and passable. The situation with the provision of salt from suppliers appears to be getting worse on a daily basis. We are being told that their stockpiles are exhausted and they are delivering only what can be dug out of the ground. The Government has invoked the Salt Cell rationing system, similar to that set up last February. We have to report our salt stock levels and what we use on a daily basis, with the Salt Cell committee now directing supplies to those who need it most. It is likely that this will stabilise the supply of salt at minimum levels, as happened last year. A Government statement on salt supplies is expected at 11.30am this morning. Many local authorities around us are rapidly running out of salt, with some down to 1 days supply, but for the time being we have sufficient, but not as much as we would wish. We are now gritting only the designated primary routes of A and B roads together with access routes to hospitals, transport interchanges etc and have suspended the re-filling of salt bins. We are also not able to supply salt to our district and borough colleagues, but our staff are working with them to clear high used footways and town centres. We are of course trying to get alternative supplies, but as you will appreciate this can be difficult. We received more salt yesterday and our stocks are at 1350 tonnes as I write this reply. We have also received more sand which we are mixing with salt and applying to roads before the big freeze every night. In very low temperatures salt alone becomes less effective. Sand helps improve vehicle traction.
As the Salt Cell operation begins to come into play we may only get enough salt to replenish what we use on the primary network only, but we will advise the public as and when anything changes.
Regards,
Cllr Stuart Pile
Executive Member for Highways & Transport
Hertfordshire County Council