Has anyone got a sense of déjà-vu about the current grit shortages and widespread disruption to the road network? The reason for that, is that this is exactly where we were in February last year. So how can we have got to this position all over again?
Some would like to point the finger of blame squarely at councils, but the fact is that after February 2009 a report was produced for the Government setting out how better contingency plans could be put in place. That report hit Whitehall desks at the beginning of August, but the real problem is that's precisely where it stayed for five months.
The recommendations in that report were not translated into guidance, and even then only partial guidance, until December 15th – just as forecasters were warning of heavy snow and only 48 hours before the first snowfall.
That delay lost our country a vital window of opportunity over the summer to get maximum contingency plans in place, and will have been a significant factor in leaving us with the current chaos that we have with our road networks.
One of the recommendations was the up-rating of grit reserves to cover six days of snowfall, but given this was formally issued as guidance only two days before the snow arrived, common sense tells you that is barely enough time to give councils to stockpile those sort of reserves. It is also worth noting that it showed even current government thinking to be outdated since at the point that six days of grit reserves were ordered, ten days of extreme weather were forecast.
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