Under-fire council chiefs defend gritting operation as snow piles high

Published on Tuesday 30 November 2010 10:02

COUNCIL chiefs today insisted they were working flat out to keep Edinburgh moving as the city's winter response again came under fire.

An estimated 38,000 workers stayed at home as the big freeze hit while the ambulance service was inundated with calls to slips and falls on the city's hazardous pavements.

That led to criticism that the city had again been caught out by the cold snap, which looks set to continue all week with temperatures dropping as low as minus-10.

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But council chiefs insisted they were coping with "unprecedented" conditions and said they were being forced to prioritise main roads and principal bus routes. Business leaders said they believed 15 per cent of the Capital's 255,000 strong workforce failed to turn up yesterday, with some firms taking the decision to close altogether.

All schools across Edinburgh and the Lothians are shut again today as the freezing conditions continue.

The city council said 75 roads staff and its entire fleet of gritters and mini-tractors had been working "round the clock" since Friday night.

As much as 14 inches of snow are estimated to have fallen in the city since 8pm on Friday, and more than 1,200 tons of salt have been used.

The city's environment leader Councillor Robert Aldridge said: "We're dealing with an unprecedented situation here – more snow has fallen in the last 72 hours or so than we had in Edinburgh over the span of a few weeks last winter.

"The council's staff are doing an incredible job in extremely challenging conditions, working around the clock to keep essential roads open, caring for vulnerable people and maintaining essential services."

There is mounting feeling, however, that the council chiefs have failed to learn the lessons of last winter when the bitter weather saw the city grind to a halt.

Tory Colinton/Fairmilehead councillor Jason Rust said: "This weather was forecast and it is vital that the council are proactive. We have been assured for weeks that the council is fully prepared and we will see whether that is the case in the coming days."

Councillor Andrew Burns, leader of the Labour group on the council, said he had received complaints about residential streets left blocked because of a lack of gritting.

He said: "I've had complaints about the visibility of gritters. I think residents are just worried that what happened last year is repeated."

Dorothy Lindsay, 42, who is disabled and lives in Carrick Knowe, said around seven of her neighbours had been forced to take to the pavements and roads with hand shovels in a bid to clear the snow.

She said: "I think it's ridiculous," she said. "The council knew what was coming, so why the delay? There's no excuse. This is what we pay our council tax for."

The city council currently has 5,750 tons of salt in stock and is expecting a delivery of a further 900 tons later in the week. It also placed an order yesterday for 1,100 tons.

A council spokeswoman added that residential grit bins would be replenished "as soon as possible".

Gritting teams made a start on secondary roads yesterday afternoon, but warned that if the forecast was correct, the main roads would have to be re-gritted.

A spokeswoman for West Lothian Council meanwhile said the area had experienced the heaviest period of snowfall in 25 years.

Graham Birse, Deputy Chief Executive of Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce, said the cold snap was hitting local businesses hard.

"It's too early to put a cash sum on any potential losses but what we do know is that roughly 15 per cent of people are no-show at their place of work."

He said the impact would be far more severe on retailers in particular if similar weather conditions hit in the third week of December, and he called for more to be done to make the city resilient.

"One thing that is worthwhile is a very close look at how the Scandinavians manage the maintenance of service during severe weather because it always appeared to me to be chaos in the UK," he said.

Aegon, Edinburgh's fourth largest private sector employer with 2,400 staff, shut up shop at the Gyle altogether yesterday.

Spokeswoman Lesley McPherson said: "It was in the interests of staff safety and their families that we closed for the day. Also the schools were off.

"This has not happened in recent years. There's been occasions where there's been bad weather before but usually it's left up to staff and management to try to get into work."

Along with schools, leisure centres, libraries and day-care centres in Midlothian also remained closed today.

Edinburgh Castle has been closed since Sunday, with the situation to be reviewed on a daily basis.

For those who did venture out, the going was often hazardous with a spate of minor accidents reported on the roads and pavements.

Ricky Notarangelo, duty officer at the Scottish Ambulance Service's city contact centre, said: "As you can imagine we've been pretty busy attending a lot of slips and falls and doctors calls.

"We've had perhaps two or three dozen callouts to people who have slipped or tripped over and those are for badly sprained ankles, broken ankles, a possible shoulder fracture, leg fracture and a knee fracture.

"However, the number of people who will have fallen over and not phoned the service will be at least five times that, maybe a lot more."

He added: "We have attended a few road traffic incidents in the Lothians but thankfully nothing major. However if ice freezes over the snow, it become very dangerous and we could be seeing a lot more of those."

Met Office forecaster, Sarah Holland, said parts of Edinburgh and the Lothians would experience at least another four inches of snow this week.

"It's not just the snowfall that could cause problems, it is the icy conditions as well," she said. Certainly there's no let-up for the next few days. As we head towards the weekend, it will still be bitterly cold with a chance of snow showers."

There is some cause for some good cheer, however.

A city council spokesman confirmed most people would not receive a parking ticket if they had to abandon their car because of the snow.

He said: "If the markings are obscured then a parking attendant will not issue a ticket."

TROUBLE IN STORE

DIY stores are facing a run on rock salt and snow shovels as the big freeze hits the Capital.

Store managers have had to call in special deliveries as shoppers scramble for winter essentials.

Some food stores have also struggled to keep shelves stocked as deliveries of milk and bread were delayed.

Of its three stores in Edinburgh, B&Q said that only its Warriston Road branch had any rock salt left. "We're down to our last pallet. Each pallet holds 50 bags of salt, and we've sold 14 over the past few days, which is unprecedented," store manager John Goggins said.

"The Easter Road store has been sold out for several days. I put in orders to bulk up our supply of salt for December and January, but the weather has caught us out early."

A member of staff at Homebase store in Hermiston Gait said that an additional delivery of rock salt was due to arrive today or tomorrow.

Staff at the Scotmid store on Boswall Parkway in Granton said that many deliveries had been delayed because of the snowy conditions.

The store ran out of bread yesterday morning and by 11am had not yet received its daily delivery of milk. The Scotmid on Marchmont Road also reported delivery delays, with just a handful of loaves of bread available.

Standstill as travel chaos hits

THE wintry weather is continuing to wreak havoc on travel plans, with the roads, railways and Edinburgh Airport all affected by heavy snow.

The freezing conditions which brought much of the Capital to a halt yesterday were expected to continue, with commuters being warned to check with operators before travelling.

Heavy snow led to disruption for bus and train services, while Edinburgh Airport closed for much of the day. The airport remained closed this morning, with travellers advised to check the status of their flights with their airline.

Most of Lothian Buses' services were yesterday disrupted by the weather, with the resulting clamour for information causing the company's website to crash.

Iain Coupar, the firm's marketing director, praised staff, but admitted efforts had been hampered by some drivers being themselves unable to turn up for work. He said: "We've got some drivers who live in outlying areas who have not managed to make it in, but the drivers who have are doing a sterling job."

On the railways, disruption to trains travelling between Waverley and Glasgow Queen Street was expected to continue today.

Edinburgh Airport staff had hoped to begin clearing the backlog today after Ryanair cancelled all services yesterday and many other flights were disrupted.

A spokesman for airport operator BAA said: "We're doing our best and have snow clearing going on 24 hours a day."

The AA said there had been an "unprecedented" demand for its services from across the UK.