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13
Jan
Crashes on ungritted Pannal road prompt call for action
A councillor has called for steep roads in residential areas to be included in the priority list for gritting after two vehicles crashed on ice.
The vehicles, one of which was a shopping delivery van. were trying to negotiate a steep slope that had not been gritted on Spring Lane in Pannal, near Harrogate.
Cllr John Mann, a Conservative who represents Oatlands and Pannal, said:
They drove halfway up the slope, could get no farther, then slid back down, crashing into the walls on either side of the road. It was lucky that no pedestrians were passing at the time.
Another image of the two stricken vehicles.
Members of the public can request routes be upgraded to the council’s priority list.
Last year the council rejected all 13 requests, as the Stray Ferret reported here.
One was the notorious Trapping Hill, near Lofthouse, where Cllr Keane Duncan, the executive member for highways, needed rescuing during his mayoral campaign last year.
Cllr Mann has written to the Tory-controlled council’s executive requesting that roads outside schools are also added to the priority gritting list.
Cllr Mann said:
The council has been battling the most extreme weather conditions we’ve seen for several years and they have been working around the clock to deal with freezing temperatures as low as minus 12 degrees. The gritting teams have kept North Yorkshire moving.
At the same time, on health and safety grounds, I am calling on the council to include steep residential roads and roads leading to schools in the priority list for gritting. I have written to the council executive to make the case for this change to the gritting schedules.
There have also been concerns about the council's failure to clear ice from routes near schools, including Pannal Primary School and Oatlands Junior School in Cllr Mann’s division.
He said:
On health and safety grounds, I think all roads outside schools should be gritted and in my ward this would include Pannal Green, Beechwood Grove, Cromwell Road and Green Lane. Yew Tree Lane, which gives access to Ashville College, is already on an existing gritting route thankfully.
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