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11
Jan
How well has the council responded to the snow?
It’s been nearly a week now since the year’s first snowfall hit, and there can’t be anyone in the Harrogate district who hasn’t felt its impact.
As we’ve reported, flights have been cancelled, buses suspended, schools shut, facilities closed, food deliveries delayed, and rural homes and housing estates cut off.
Central to nearly all of this disruption has been the state of the roads and the footpaths. Snow and ice have blocked some streets and made many pavements too dangerous for many people to risk negotiating.
The body responsible for keeping these thoroughfares clear and safe is North Yorkshire Council, so given the chaos of the last seven days, just how has it performed?
The council started gritting the roads in readiness for the cold weather on Saturday, focusing on priority 1 routes, which include most of the main roads, but not the residential housing areas.
As a result, these main arteries have been clear for most of the week.
Once these had been dealt with, council workers tackled priority 2 routes, such as Lead Lane and Quarry Moor Lane in Ripon, Stockwell Lane and Manor Road in Knaresborough, and King Edward’s Drive and Duchy Road in Harrogate.
Icy pavement outside Western Primary School in Harrogate
After those, the council’s attention turned to priority 3 routes, which is all the rest of the roads, including minor lanes and cul-de-sacs.
But there has been doubt as to whether some of the priority 1 routes were indeed treated when they should have been.
For example, Cambridge Street – the main shopping street in the heart of Harrogate town centre – was still icebound several days after the snow fell, even though it is a top-priority route and should have been treated in the first wave.
Matthew Chapman, chief executive of Harrogate BID (business improvement district), told the Stray Ferret on Wednesday:
Going by our own experience, and that of many members who trade in the town centre, we do not believe that this has taken place in four days.
He added that the BID was “extremely disappointed with the lack of what feels like statutory services delivered in Harrogate town centre”.
While the situation in the town centre has caused disappointment, the council’s slowness in getting round to the tier 3 minor routes has caused downright anger.
The comment from reader Peter Wise on the Stray Ferret’s Facebook page summarised the mood. He wrote:
In 47 years of living here I've never seen pavements so dangerous. This is entirely due to neglect from our council who should have the major pathways in towns and around hospitals etc gritted.
We all pay our council taxes, so where is this essential service? Who are the people making these decisions? I think the population deserve some answers.
The Stray Ferret has been asking for answers all week, but with limited success. When we asked the council what it was doing to support schools to reopen, for example, we were sent a link to the council webpage listing school closures.
But last night, North Yorkshire Council’s executive member for highways and transportation, Cllr Keane Duncan, finally addressed some of the concerns voiced by so many in our district. In a press release on the council’s efforts to tackle the weather-related problems facing the region, he said that council teams were working “round the clock” to deal with the situation. He said:
Conditions in the west of North Yorkshire, including in and around Harrogate and the Dales, are proving particularly challenging.
Our gritting teams and farming contractors have been working extremely hard to treat roads, refill grit bins and clear footpaths around shops, schools and hospitals.
We have already diverted extra manpower to this effort, with waste and parks staff supporting our operations.
Unfortunately, snow drifts are frustrating our efforts to keep roads clear, while the sub-zero temperatures have been so extreme that the effectiveness of salt on roads and footpaths has been impacted.
Contractors working for North Yorkshire Council have been using quad bikes to treat pavements.
While it may be good to hear that the council is working on the problem around the clock, there remain question marks over whether resources have been targeted correctly.
Although road gritters are a familiar sight, and clearly effective most of the time, and contractors have used quadbikes to grit some pedestrian areas, there has been little evidence of the deployment of pavement gritters of the type common in many other areas.
This kind of mini gritter is used by the council in Edinburgh
Pavements near schools, railway stations and GP surgeries appear not to have been regarded as a priority and many are still extremely slippery.
Harrogate District Hospital is having to reallocate resources to cope with a sharp upturn in broken hips and wrists due to falls on icy pavements.
Independent councillor Paul Haslam, who represents the Bilton and Nidd Gorge division on North Yorkshire Council, told us:
I thought the pavements both in Bilton and surrounding area and the centre of town were very difficult to navigate, and I would have expected more to be done to ensure pedestrians could go about their day safely.
I was exceedingly concerned with the number of people forced to walk in the road exposing themselves to danger.
Ripon city councillor Pauline McHardy has even said that icy pavements are "putting lives at risk".
According to its website, North Yorkshire Council’s policy is to clear busy shopping streets and main pedestrian footpaths will be cleared first after snowfall and icy conditions. Remaining footpaths and cycleways will be treated in priority order as resources allow.
The council has published maps of these routes for Harrogate, Ripon, Knaresborough, Pateley Bridge, Masham and Boroughbridge, which you can find here, but these suggest that the locations of schools and GP surgeries are not taken into account.
Outside the Leeds Road Practice in Harrogate, four days after snow fell
Whether North Yorkshire Council’s policies and priorities will be reviewed after the current operation remains to be seen. Cllr Haslam hopes they will. He said that if this kind of weather event is likely to occur more frequently, “we most certainly as a council have to up our game to make it safe for all”.
He told the Stray Ferret:
Through your pages I would like to urge my residents to take care on the snow and indicate how the council could have better supported them through this disruptive weather, including deployment of salt bins, and I will forward the feedback to the highways team.
My latest information is that the council has secured additional resource to try to improve conditions both on pavements and sideroads in the Harrogate area.
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