Troubled council fears financial consequences of cold snap

A council’s winter maintenance crews have been hailed as heroes, amid concerns about the economic impact of the current cold snap.

Crews have been working around the clock to keep roads open and deliver essential services to residents, but there are already concerns that the cost of dealing with the snow and ice will deepen Flintshire County Council’s financial struggles.

Council leader David Hughes said: “The crews have been amazing, they are real heroes.

“In weather like this we have to do what is necessary to keep the county moving safely – and they have done an incredible job.

“They go out there when conditions are at their worst to ensure the rest of us can get to school and work safely and we owe them our gratitude.”

Collisions

Cllr Hughes revealed that over the weekend two gritters had been involved in collisions – one on the A55 and another on the A483.

Council officers confirmed both vehicles were already back on the road and there had been minimal disruption to the gritting programme.

“Two gritting vehicles were involved in separate road traffic collisions on Sunday morning and Monday morning,” said Katie Wilby, Flintshire’s chief officer for Streetscene and Transportation.

“Thankfully, drivers were uninjured in both incidents and no other parties were injured. Both vehicles are back on the road and investigations into the collisions are underway.

“We employ 14 gritting vehicles to cover eventualities such as breakdowns or incidents as this, and we have 12 ‘priority 1’ gritting routes. All 12 priority routes are being gritted in line with our policy.”

Financial reserves

Those gritting routes cover 45% of the total county highway network. Over 72 hours from New Year’s Day to Friday, January 3, Flintshire County Council said it gritted 1,674 miles of road and spread more than 300 tonnes of salt costing £21,000. Over the weekend and into this week that spend will have increased further.

With financial reserves running at historic low levels and the council already battling a £47.5m funding gap, the icy blast has proved to be a lot more chilling for the authority.

“Thankfully we have plenty of grit so we have been running 24-hour shift patterns to keep the roads clear,” said Cllr Hughes.

“There is a huge cost to dealing with weather like this and it will definitely have an influence on our overspend at the end of the year but we can’t just leave things and let people fend for themselves.

“We will not leave people in danger or stranded. Regardless of cost we have to deal with the situation, look after our communities and we will assess the financial impact afterwards. What it does underline is that years of austerity and low local government settlements mean we no longer have the buffer zone we need financially to respond to periods like this.

“This is a climate change issue, we are only going to see more extreme weather like this. But we are not being given the resources to deal with it through central funding so we do the best we can.

“Despite all that I am proud of the efforts of our winter maintenance crews and everyone who has worked with them to keep Flintshire moving over the last few days.”