Warning over Shropshire grit supplies
Tuesday 7th December 2010, 12:00PM GMT.
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Gritting salt is to be diluted in a desperate attempt to eke out supplies as the Arctic conditions maintain their stranglehold on Shropshire, it was revealed today.
Telford & Wrekin Council will next week begin watering down its salt stock with grit to make it go further, despite having bolstered stocks by 60 per cent on last year.
Shropshire Council said it had no plans to follow suit as it currently had sufficient supplies of salt but Powys County Council said it would consider diluting stocks once its salt levels got down to 3,000 tonnes and the number of roads gritted would be reduced at 5,000 tonnes.
News of the action comes after RAF Shawbury recorded a low of -10C (14F) overnight but the mercury sank to -13C (9F) in more remote parts of the county.
Forecasters have predicted more of the same for the county tonight, with an average low of -8C (18F) on the cards, and tomorrow will be a repeat although by Saturday temperatures are set to rise as high as 7C (41F), with rain sweeping in from Friday.
Salt supplies in Telford & Wrekin were at a maximum at the beginning of last month but the authority said its gritters had been out 33 times since November 9 and since November 23 had been gritting twice a day, every day.
The council is now warning drivers to take extra care because the mixture that will be used on the main routes from Tuesday may not react as quickly on snow or ice.
Councillor Adrian Lawrence, council cabinet member for the environment, said: “We have taken this decision looking at longer range forecasts of continuing freezing temperatures and because we cannot be absolutely confident of obtaining replacement salt supplies we have on order.”
The council said it had so far used 1,600 tonnes of the 2,700 tonnes it had when stocks were full in early October.
Powys County Council said it would not be diluting its salt at present but said if stocks went below 3,000 tonnes it would consider the use of additives.
Simon Alton, spokesman for Shropshire Council, said the authority had not used any grit at all by this time last year, with trucks not going out until December 12.
Meanwhile, a driver escaping uninjured when a Powys County Council snow plough overturned in Forden, near Welshpool, yesterday.
And Severn Trent Water was this morning repairing a burst water pipe in Minsterley, near Shrewsbury, along the A488. The leak was said to be freezing as soon as it hit the road.
One Telford & Wrekin Council bin lorry also needed to be rescued from an icy estate road by a JCB digger.
The RAC yesterday reported 3,500 calls for assistance every hour at one point, the busiest since the cold spell began.
The busiest areas were Scotland and the whole of the North, down to the East Midlands and Kent.
Scotland’s Transport Minister apologised today after hundreds of motorists were stranded in their cars overnight, following heavy snow and freezing temperatures which brought main routes to a standstill.
Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson conceded that the weather advice the authorities had been working on yesterday “did not meet the requirements”
And he warned it may take some time before the roads were “back to anything approaching normal”.
Some travellers were stuck in their vehicles for more than 15 hours.
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I haven’t noticed anything being gritted where I live. The pavements are lethal, I assume if they grit and we fall we can sue, if they don’t grit and we fall it is an act of god.
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You can only sue if you can prove particular and relevant negligence or malpractice on the Councils part and that this negligence or malpractice contributed specifically to your injury.
The law will say you also have a certain responsibility for your own safety, in that when considering to leave your house you would by the nature of common sense make an assessment of the outside conditions and then prepare and subsequently manage your behaviour in line with those conditions in order to minimise any risk to yourself and others.
Any Legal Firm worth their SALT would not touch a claim relating to the gritting of roads or footways by a Council.
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The sueing if grit is put down is just a myth.
It always amuses me that people in this country can’t deal with a little bit of snow and ice.
There is nothing wrong with these conditions if you drive slowly or wear appropriate footwear.
So may I suggest to you Jo that you get a grip and get on with it.
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Appropriate footwear on our road being ice skates. I agree to an extent with what you say, but not everyone has excellent balance. Icy footpaths are lethal for a lot of people, regardless of what they are wearing on their feet.
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If you are not confident of going out then don’t go out.
People are too quick to blame other people instead of taking an element of personal responsibility.
People should use their head before going out in these conditions.
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same in Herongate Shrewsbury, we have seen no grit at all but luckily the roads are not bad, its the pavements that are really bad.
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And there they were bragging they had plenty of salt, before the snow came
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This is not in fact dilution. Dilution in this context is the addition of a liquid to the material.
What the authority is doing is bulking out existing stocks by adding grit.
If this was truly dilution the addition of any liquid (most typically water) would simply proudce a saline solution. Uterly useless for spreading over any road.
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Yes I seem to remember Shropshire council, Wrekin coucil or whever they call themselves these days saying they had large stockpiles of salt for the winter season.
Now a few days after a powdering of snow and hardly into the start of winter they are having to “water down the salt”
Water down the salt!. Can someone from the coucil tell me how you water down salt? I always thought water froze in freezing tempreatures!
Over here in some states in the US they add molasses to the salt/brine this makes salt and grit stick to the roads better, also sometimes they dye the salt so as you can see where the road has been salted. I attach the article. maybe someone at Shroshire council etc will read it and adopt the methhod ttp://www.governing.com/idea-center/Mix-Sugar-Beet-Molasses.htmlod.
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Shropshire Council is using Safecoat Salt treatment this year, which is the salt coated with molasses to help it stick to the road better. Not sure whether Telford and Wrekin are using the same type. So to answer your question Shropshire council have adopted the idea.
Some councils are dyeing the salt in Grit Bins to stop people stealing it to grit their own drives or paths.
As for watering down salt, I think that is a journalist issue not a council one!!!!
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how can you plan for this?? have you been outside, this is the most severe winter I have ever seen in my near 50 years in the UK, its a one off freak event, why would you plan for such extremes every year when generally we’ve been having warm and mild winters for years now in the UK
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Maybe you should all read the story about Ricky Fergusson before you start whining about gritting and ‘lethal’ pavements.
Get real – stop home if you don’t like the weather…..
5 Brian – Water mixed with salt makes a saline solution with a lower freezing point than pure water – commonly known as brine.
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@ Brian
The molasses idea has been tried in the UK, but seems to cause almost as many problems as it solves. Even after the ice has melted and the roads washed by rain, there is a slippery residue left behind that apparently has led to quite a few accidents for cyclists and motorcylists.
It is also very attractive to deer and sheep, who will wander onto roads to lick the sweet-tasting surface – probably not a great idea in a mainly rural county….
Just Google “safecote” for more info.
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What a complete farse.
Only a week or so ago we were being told “we have enough salt to last 16 days, while gritting 3 or 4 times a day” and here we are just 8 to 10 days in and we are running out.
They have only been gritted the main roads. Side roads have not been touched, town centres have been left, car parks have not been done.So where has all the salt gone!!
Looks to me like someone in the council was trying to score points when the first snow fell, thinking it would only last a few day.
Lets get real and start telling the truth, not what the council think we want to hear.
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they have already started doing this to the grit. we had it done last year aswell. to me it looks like the salt is less than 50% and it does bugger all. our roads were realy bad when the snow was down and now they are realy icy. getting the kids to school is a trek and a half even if some pathways are gritted. communities spend time spreading grit to help each other out and then all of a sudden we have a grit shortage!!!! i wonder if we should water down our council tax payments and see if thats acceptable…. i think not
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Telford & wrekin did infact use the molasses over the past two years,but found that wild animals were attracted by the odour of this leading to more road kill & damage to vehicles.Salt will not be diluted but mixed with small grit to make the stock last longer,routes will be cut without a doubt as stocks of salt are not available until the new year!!!!
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Maybe the council had been treating the Mystic Met Office’s words as gospel:
http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/208012/Winter-to-be-mild-predicts-Met-Office/
When, really, they should have been reading and digesting more independent reports:
http://rt.com/news/prime-time/coldest-winter-emergency-measures/?fullstory
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Not again! Another balls up on the winter road programme after last years debacle i do hope someone will be sacked. It sounds like the bumbling beaurocrats got it wrong again, this proves the inefficiency of the public sector especially on procurement, what is needed is to get a big private company in to manage all these things instead, with private sector vigour so that the profit margin on the salt will motivate greater efficiency with its use and procurement will be cost effective for all, share holders will make sure of that! Lets get rid of the public sector workers now and bring in some real private sector experts
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What a naive little world you must live in – one where private industry never fails or rips the public off…(think Railtrack, or any one of the privatised energy companies or water suppliers.)
I don’t think I’ll be taking any advice on bureaucrats from someone who can’t even come close to spelling the word correctly.
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Come on Peter – you can’t judge the entire private sector by the few anomalous examples you provide.
What about the sterling work carried out by our banks and other financial institutions?
PS “H” – all highway maintenance (including gritting) in Telford & Wrekin IS carried out by a private company.
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Yes and the fantastic indian call centre as used by my bank, you queue for an hour in the phone then get accidently disconnected! rubbish the private sector are rubbish
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And there it is, the inevitable “this wouldn’t happen in the private sector” type comment. On the same day when there’s a report stating that the (privatised)utility firms are struggling to cope as well. Perfect timing there H.
Stocks were increased by 60% on last year in case you’d missed that. Now suppose that the weather this winter had turned out to be milder than expected, would you then be complaining that the council had wasted money buying more stocks than were required?
Proof again that the public sector is truly damned if it does, and damned if it doesn’t by the armchair expert brigade.
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In Canada we often have lots of sand spread with our salt/grit…in fact somedays it looks like we are driving on the beach. Salt itself is bad for the environment. The sand always seems fine, maybe it helps out with stretching salt/grit supplies, whatever, it seems to suit and I’ve never had an issue.
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There is no legal requirement for any council to grit highways or more specifically footpaths. They grit roads to keep business (ie wealth) moving but its a fine balance. As the public, we have no legal right to be able to drive down any road so if snow closes a road, you cannot sue for damages. In other countries, you would be expected to have a suitable vehicle -ie 4*4 or one fitted with snow chains \ tyres. Back in the 1970s / 80s when we had bad snow every winter on the pennines, the milkman had snow chains, my father had snow tyres and the local menfolk took it in turns to clear snow and hand apply grit to keep cars moving. Flashforward to 2010 and we have people whining that the council hasn’t cleared eveywhere for them. We are getting soft after 10+ years of mild wet winters.
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This morning on my 4 mile journey to work i have seen a black Astra run a red light, a blue Focus drive accross a mini island like it wasn’t there, several cars not even bother to indicate at the castlefields island and several cars go right round the outside of the Stafford Park island because they didn’t want to queue on the slip road. I’m quite sure if any of these idiotic actions had resulted in accidents the drivers would have found some way of blaming icy roads and gritters..
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When we se the problems other counties are having throughout the UK, I can’t help but think that T&w have performed well in keeping the main routes clear.
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I must be one of the lucky ones, i live on the number 55 bud route and the roads are clear, the paths are not the best, but i didn’t know the paths was gritted.
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yes tats just what we need, more privatisation, they do such a good job after all! have you ever waiting in the q for a call centre with Amazon or been fined by ur bank for going £1 overdrawn, thats private sector practice for you!
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The private sector would be no better or worse really as it all comes down to money. If you want to be 100% prepared, its will cost many many millions more than we currently spend. As we cannot justify that much money being spent, a judgement call is made on how much grit, how many gritters and how many drivers are employed ‘just in case’
Some years that judgement will have been too high, sometimes too low and sometimes just right. What matters as much is the plan B for the years that plan A wasn’t good enough. You cannot change some simple rules, if it snows heaviliy at rush hour, the ploughs and gritters get stuck in the traffic they are trying to help giving more time for snow to settle making traffic worse slowing the gritters down more and so on.
If the temperature goes below -10C, salt \grit ceases to work. You also find that cars break down because they haven’t been maintained properly with antifreeze, cars crash beacuse the drivers do not drive to the conditions (I did so myself a few years back) but the country struggles on except for the doom mongers, whingers and legal aid sharks.
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