Gritting, Salting, Freezing

All over the weekend there were complaints about the standard of gritting in and around the borough, and certainly the roads weren't particularly easy to drive on. Council officers have assured us that the gritters and snow ploughs were out and were covering our primary gritting routes - roads such as Yarm Rd, Durham Lane, the A67 were all gritted several times over the weekend. This is the message we sent out yesterday to those residents who sign up to have e-mail updates sent to them:
At 1053 on 20-12-09 a Stockton Council Officer wrote:
“Gritters have been out constantly noon yesterday, 4pm, midnight, 4am.
Richard Bradley is Duty Engineer this weekend and is awaiting today's
forecast. Road Surface temperatures were down to -10 degrees. Salt
effectiveness is reduced at -5 and below and at -10 the amounts needed
become economically and environmentally undesirable. That said we've had
80gms of salt down since yesterday. There is enough salt on the network
so any gritting today will have little extra effect.”
At 11.06 he added:
“Given the current conditions the salt bins are not our priority. They
will be refilled as resources allow.”
There is information about the Council procedures and policies at
http://www.stockton.gov.uk/citizenservices/environment/CFYA/highwayservice
s/55641/ which also has links to more details. You may find the website
http://www.bbc.co.uk/travelnews/local/tees.shtml useful for seeing which
roads are blocked or difficult, If anyone knows of a better site for
local conditions please do let us know.

Not what any of us wanted to hear of course. We really wanted a magic wand to clear the roads and make the pavements passable but to leave the pretty picture snow in suitable places. It may be almost Christmas but this is Eaglescliffe, not Fairyland, and we have to be content with what we can achieve.