County Council prepares for winter

County Council prepares for winter

The long, cold, dark winter evenings may not be drawing in just yet, but West Sussex County Council is already starting to make preparations to cope with a possible repeat of last winter’s severe conditions.

Thousands of tonnes of salt are being stockpiled at depots across the county ready to be used by the County Council’s fleet of 25 gritters.

The County Council has also strengthened its arrangements with Parish, District and Borough councils following a ‘snow summit’ held earlier this year to identify what lessons could be learned from last winter.

Lionel Barnard, Deputy Leader of West Sussex County Council with responsibility for Highways and Transport, said: “Last winter we saw the worst weather conditions for 30 years. The prolonged conditions and a national shortage of salt put councils under pressure.

“The snow summit was a useful opportunity to look at how public and voluntary services coped with the severe weather conditions and how we all might work better together in the future.

“We now have a stockpile of 18,000 tonnes of salt. This is twice as much as we normally use. The County Council will also be extending the distribution of bulk bags of salt and grit to key locations, a new scheme that was piloted last winter with District and Borough councils. The bags each weigh one and a half tonnes and can be targeted at areas in need such as busy shopping precincts, bus stops or railway stations.

“This new initiative was a very effective way of quickly targeting our resources to areas which needed help,” said Lionel.

“We are also working closely with Parish Councils to ensure plans are in place to support local communities, and that where possible we encourage people to help themselves by offering support and advice.”

The County Council will be issuing further advice in the coming months and will have detailed information on its website www.westsussex.gov.uk

The County Council will also be testing its fleet of gritters and snowploughs in its annual ‘Operation Snowflake’ later this year. The pre-winter exercise briefs gritter drivers on routes and tests callout procedures.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 3rd, 2010 at 13:31 and is filed under News Bulletins. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.