Powys set to adopt ‘DIY’ strategy to gritting roads
By Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporter
At a meeting of Powys County Council’s Economy Residents and Communities scrutiny committee yesterday (Wednesday), councillors received a draft report on phase two of the Winter Service review.
The review has been ongoing for over two years and the Liberal Democrat/Labour Cabinet will have three options to choose from when they meet to discuss the proposal.
The preferred option (Option Two) will see the county’s road network placed in tiers of priority from one to five and around 334 kilometres of roads will be dropped from the gritting network.
The proposal includes the need to buy and install 100 salt bins around the county, to help harder to reach communities.
Cabinet member for highways transport and recycling, Cllr Jackie Charlton (Liberal Democrat) said: “After a thorough process of consultation, review and amendment we now bring forward these final proposals.
“Today’s paper reflects both national best practice and local perspective aiming to deliver a fair, consistent and high-quality winter service for every community in Powys.”
Cllr Pete Lewington (Conservative) said: “We are proposing to cut roads from the gritting routes which could lead to some areas to be isolated in very harsh conditions.
“On community bins, there’s an assumption that residents are willing and fit enough to help on untreated roads provided they can get to the grit bin in the first place.
“I do wonder if this is abandoning the residents in remote locations to the impacts of severe weather events.”
Cllr Charlton said: “I do understand that it’s going to cause concern, we had to come up with an equitable approach.”
Cllr Charlton stressed that gritting routes had not been reviewed in over 20 years and hoped that residents would be “vigilant” and live by the “help your neighbour” philosophy during extreme winter weather.
Cllr Charlton said: “We’re hoping that our county councillors and town and community councils will help and support us by making sure those bins are in the right place and are being used by the right people for the right reason.
“For that reason, we may be able to cover far more roads than we do now and communities can do something immediately other than wait for a lorry to come out and put grit down.”
Cllr Liz Rijnenberg (Labour) added: “If salt bins are in the right places and they are replenished I think there has to be more responsibility on communities to use those and make roads and pathways safe.”
Highways technical and business services senior manager, Shaun James, stressed that the council would continue to respond in extreme winter weather “white out conditions” in the same way as it has always done and the money to do this would be found from the risk reserve if needed.
Mr James added: “This is about the precautionary (road) treatments. This sets out how and why we are doing these routes and we will be able to make adjustments within the criteria we have got.”
Councillors agreed to recommend option two to cabinet.
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