Keeping the Borough Moving in the Snow and Ice

With these freezing temperatures set to stay with us for at least the rest of the week, my priority is obviously to make sure the Council is doing all it can to help people stay safe and to keep the Borough moving during the cold weather. As far as keeping the Borough moving is concerned, we managed to beat the national grit shortage by locating a supply of salt in Sweden in the summer, and we have gone into this winter with 133% more grit than our previous maximum stock level. The gritters have been out 6 nights in the past seven, and you can find out when and where they will be gritting (along with information on school transport and any school closure information) at www.bedford.gov.uk/wintergritting or by following @grittertweets on Twitter.

During the freezing weather many of the more vulnerable members of our communities are often even more vulnerable. The Council's adult services teams obviously keep a close eye on their clients during such periods, while of course if we have elderly neighbours, for example, it's important that we all do the same.

You may have seen that I wrote about winter maintenance issues in a recent edition of the Times and Citizen Newspaper. I have reproduced the article below for those who haven't read it:

With plunging temperatures this week serving as a bracing sign that winter is coming, it's all too easy to recall the bitter chill of last winter's 'Big Freeze'. Quite rightly, people are now asking if councils are prepared for the task of keeping the roads safe should we face similarly harsh conditions this time around.

I am pleased to report that, despite a severe national shortage of gritting salt, in Bedford Borough we are in a strong position due to our determination to go the extra mile to obtain supplies. Or rather the extra 1,100 miles, for in June we located an available salt supply in Sweden and purchased an additional 3,000 tonnes.

We ordered it just after the longest day of the year, and I must say it felt strange to be working on winter maintenance during the heat of the summer! However, it was pleasing that our refusal to take "There's no salt," for an answer had enabled us to more than double our gritting stocks.

Cold weather has an extremely damaging effect on road surfaces, but we will not let it derail our ongoing fight-back against the crumbling, unacceptable state in which the former county council left our roads and pavements. We recently confirmed an immediate £1 million boost to road and pavement works, taking the level of extra investment to £4 million within two years. More resurfacing is taking place across the borough as we continue this battle, while we will shortly be launching a new rapid response team for pothole repairs.

Keeping the borough moving through the cold weather is not only about the grit and the tar, though. It's also about keeping residents up-to-date with information about road conditions, school buses and school closures, should they occur. We're about to launch a new 'Gritter Twitter' service, which will be another source of live information on the winter roads in addition to the council's website (see www.bedford.gov.uk/wintergritting), while of course we continue to use all the more traditional forms of communication.

The council will be just a tweet, a text or a telephone call away as we work to keep Bedford Borough moving this winter and help people stay safe on the roads.