Public are furious with the gritters (From Bucks Free Press)

Public are furious with the gritters

1:02pm Friday 8th January 2010 in

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EVERYWHERE I’ve gone these last few days, I’ve heard the same complaint. Almost everyone I have spoken to has interrupted their casual conversations by saying: “I hope you’re doing something on the lack of gritters.”

Yes, the public are furious with what they believe is a dereliction of duty by the county council during the snow. However, the council insists it has done everything possible, has laid on extra teams and that heavy traffic was to blame for the night on December 21 when the area came to a standstill.

Meanwhile, the side roads were left virtually untouched and the pavements were icy and hazardous. It has been a nightmare.

But the council insists it has worked flat out and that it spends around £1m a year on its winter service.

Now, I am the last person to defend the council. If I had my way, it would be abolished and merged into a series of unitary authorities. But I’m not sure it is totally to blame in this instance.

An ancient notice from the 1940s was handed to me. It was from Marlow Urban District Council warning it was the duty of ‘All occupiers of premises, fronting, adjoining or abutting on any street’ to clear the footways and pavements of snow.

Any persons failing to carry this out could be liable to a penalty not exceeding 40 shillings.

Nowadays, however, people are too worried about health and safety laws to do this. Time and again, this health and safety theme has emerged. And I have to confess, I was initially worried myself when I went to clear the ice and snow outside my own home.

I feared that if I cleared the snow – upon which it was basically safe to drive and walk – I could inadvertently leave a patch of dangerous ice. Then if someone slipped, or a car crashed, I could be blamed.

But I took the plunge and spent several hours with a spade doing what I could. I was glad I did because my driveway and a large part of the front of my house where I had dug was free from ice over Christmas. But the parts I didn’t attend to remained icy and sinister after the snow melted, proving I should have done even more.

As most sensible people have since told me, the health and safety worry is probably a red herring. Anyone walking or driving in this weather knows it has been snowing and it is icy, and that therefore extreme caution must be taken by motorists and pedestrians. They can hardly blame the landowner if something then goes wrong, unless there’s been massive negligence.

We live in a blame culture in this country. When something goes wrong, people try to find someone at fault, so the council is a natural target. And it probably does deserve criticism for gritting too few roads and pavements.

But if you are going to blame anyone for this, then maybe you should have a go at Mother Nature for making it snow.

Or maybe you should blame the blame culture itself for inhibiting our inclination to clear the snow for fear of being sued.

Or perhaps it’s the fault of the modern-day culture of reliance on the state for everything when we should be more self-reliant?

No, I’m not happy my road wasn’t gritted or that the district council didn’t clear my bins. But I do accept there is a limited amount of cash available for our councils, despite the huge taxes they impose on us.

This, if anything, is another illustration of why they should merge into more local unitary authorities. Currently, the functions are divided confusingly between County Hall at Aylesbury and your district councils – and in many cases your parishes as well.

Smaller, more powerful, and more local councils may have got to grips better with this crisis. Who knows?

What I do know is that you can blame County Hall for many things, but the weather is not one of them – and that most of us, including me, could and should do more for our community.

* Just after I wrote this, another bigger snowfall hit us on Tuesday night. My first impression is that the roads have been gritted far better this time. But as I walked to work, I was alarmed by the instances of careless driving I saw on the roads. Some motorists were going far too fast for the conditions, while others were driving along with their windows still covered in snow and ice. I suppose they’ll blame the council for that as well.