£500,000 bill for road gritting
Wednesday 24th February 2010, 6:40PM GMT.
The bill for keeping Telford and Wrekin’s roads open during the freezing conditions so far this winter is about £500,000, new figures revealed.
The money has been spent by Telford & Wrekin Council on grit supplies for the roads and on the cost of sending out its fleet of gritters and snow ploughs.
Almost 5,000 tonnes of salt have been used on the borough’s roads and the gritting fleet has turned out 110 times.
It comes as Shropshire Council yesterday said it had spent more than £1 million so far on maintaining roads this winter.
Councillor Adrian Lawrence, cabinet member for environment at Telford & Wrekin Council, said: “The conditions this winter have been particularly harsh and therefore we sent the gritters out three times more often than usual and used a third more rock salt.
“Our environmental teams have worked tirelessly to keep our agreed network of roads routinely gritted.
“This winter our gritting teams have been called out around 110 times – the average for a winter is just 71, which shows just how cold it has been. This council routinely grits around 40 per cent of its road network.”
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In Toronto Canada the budgeted snow removal costs are $20million dollars!
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Interesting. The next time it snows and the traffic grinds to a halt, those who complain that other countries seem to cope would do well to remember tc’s comment above.
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