Edinburgh City Council has responded to criticisms that it has not been gritting roads and pathways quickly enough during the cold snap of the holiday period. The capital is expected to continue experiencing snowy, icy conditions, several degrees below zero, to the end of the week and beyond
“The last few weeks have seen a massive amount of increased pressure on Council services,” said Cllr Jenny Dawe, Leader of the City of Edinburgh Council.
“We have seen some treacherous conditions on the roads and our priority must remain the main routes into the city, access routes for emergency services and routes to hospitals. We are acutely aware of the impact on local areas because of the priority system. Residents should utilise the 1,600 on street grit bins across the city, which are replenished as quickly as possible."
The Priority System
The Council has 26 gritters on the city’s roads and 12 mini tractors on footways and paths operating around the clock.
The city’s roads and pavements are divided into three categories: the first category covers main routes in and out of the city as well as access routes for emergency services, the second covers other main roads and connecting routes while the third category covers streets in local neighbourhoods.
The gritters and mini tractors work their way through the categories from one to three, but if heavy snow starts to fall again (as has happened) then they revert back to category one routes to ensure they are cleared. This means that some category three routes might not get seen to for some time.
The Council is now also prioritising routes to special schools in the first instance then to the rest of Edinburgh's schools.
There have been reports that there is not enough salt supplies to cope with the unprecedented weather conditions. A Council release today stated: "Staff will begin to replenish the salt bins tomorrow (Wednesday 6th January), upon confirmation that the salt delivery has been received."
Firstly, snow and ice needs to be cleared manually from pavements and roads for grit to be effective. So task force staff are also being redeployed from street cleaning to manually clear snow/ice from priority areas such as residential streets and shopping centres.
The council release states: "We are working on accessing further grit for footpaths. Once grit becomes available we will then be able to easily spread that on the cleared routes."
Task force staff will also be helping to fill grit bins on streets.
Emergency Repairs Needed on Schools
Staff have been reallocated from planned gas servicing to focus on the increase in emergency gas repairs that have been received, an increase of over 300% on the normal daily average.
The majority of Edinburgh schools are opening as normal tomorrow. However several schools will be closed: Gracemount Primary “due to heating problems, nursery class at Dalmeny Primary “due to a burst pipe”, Buckstone Primary, Redhall School and Woodlands School “all due to weather conditions”.
There continues to be repeated disruption to Waste Services with high lying areas and those worst affected by the snow and ice having seen disruptions to their collections since before Christmas.