Critically low amounts and poor quality of salt identified in gritting report

The report on gritting and winter maintenance carried out by the Council shows that stocks were allowed to decline to “critically low amounts” and that the quality of salt was poor making it “less effective”.

The review was ordered following the huge number of complaints at the Council’s poor response to the snow and ice in December and January.

The 12 page report is accompanied by nine appendixes running to over 70 pages, prompting one member of the public to comment that if the Council had been as “overzealous” with gritting as it has been producing the report then there would have been no need for a review.

The review begins by seeking to mitigate the Council’s performance by detailing the advice and warnings given by national organisations such as the Met Office and the Department of Transport, before going on to a comparison with the other nine local authorities in the Greater Manchester area.

The report, in typical Local Authority style, lays part of the ‘blame’ on the council’s contractual partners: “The Council experienced local issues in part due to the first year operation of a new contracted relationship.”

“There are areas of operation that are not in line with the quality statement and can be improved.”

The current contractual agreement is with Balfour Beatty via the Impact Partnership.

However, the Council concedes the salt was not really fit for the purpose, it being old stock that was “less effective” and that stocks had been allowed to decline to a “critically low amount”, just 99 tonnes, by 21 December, and the storage facilities at the Entwistle Road depot are also unsuitable. The Council is now looking at more suitable storage facilities to ensure the quality of the salt does not deteriorate during storage.

In light of the lack of salt and the and the poor quality of stocks, the Council took the decision to prioritise “priority routes” but the report gives no definition of what constitutes a priority route and there were comments from councillors at the Performance and Scrutiny Committee meeting that some main roads in the borough had not been gritted and the roads and pavements around the hospital were also left un-gritted.

Middleton Councillor Terry Linden complained that main roads in Langley, Hollin and Cheapside, and also Darnhill in Heywood were not gritted.

Balfour Beatty and Impact Partnership say if there had been no issues with salt stocks the existing vehicles and provision would have been sufficient but the view of the Council is that the ‘priority routes’ need to be amended as they “do not include some critical areas”.

Poor communication and a lack of reliable information and updates on the Council website were criticisms from the general public and councillors but there is scant mention of this in the report, in fact, the appendix on communications paints a rosy picture of constant communication via the Council website and local and regional media.

Speaking at the Performance and Scrutiny Committee meeting, Conservative Councillor Robert Clegg told council officers that their focus was wrong, he said: “The question should be what standard of service do we require and then provide the funding and resources to reach that standard.”

Councillor Clegg also commented on the problem of grit bins being stolen and suggested they be “nailed to the floor” and of schools closing causing serious knock on problems, he suggested that schools could at least offer shelter to pupils even if teachers were unable to get in.

A number of councillors took issue with the decision to close schools being left to individual head teachers.

The report now goes to Township committees for discussion, after which council officers will prepare an “options paper with costings”.