Council reveals plan to deal with the ‘Beast from the East’

UNTREATED?Many of the local roads across Mayo will be not be salted despite the promise of a lot of cold and frosty weather this winter.

Council reveals plans to deal  with the ‘Beast from the East’


National and secondary routes to be prioritised in winter plan

Anton McNulty

As weather forecasters predict a cold winter, Mayo County Council has revealed that 97 percent of local roads will not get salted this winter.
The UK Met Office’s 90-day forecast has predicted the New Year to see bitter easterly winds from Russia in a weather phenomenon dubbed the ‘Beast from the East’. Temperatures are predicted to plunge down to levels similar to December 2010, when temperatures fell to -10 degrees Celsius and caused chaos on the nations roads.
Mayo County Council outlined its winter service policy to councillors at yesterday’s monthly meeting. The council has divided the road network into three priority sectors, with national primary and national secondary routes, as well at the regional road R376 leading from the N17 to Ireland West Airport Knock given Priority 1 status.
Priority 2 routes are the strategically important regional and local routes, while Priority 3 routes are footpaths in urban centres, cycleways and other regional and local roads.
“Given the scale of the resources involved in delivering the winter maintenance service, it is not possible to provide the service to all parts of the road network,” the policy report stated.
“Mayo County Council ordinarily treats 1,050 km of road across 23 treatment routes, which equates to 100 percent of the national primary network, 100 percent of the national secondary network, 78 percent of regional roads and 3 percent of the local road network.”
The council stated that its policy is to provide an effective and efficient winter-maintenance service within the resources available to allow the safe passage of vehicles and pedestrians; minimise delays due to winter weather; and ensure operations are undertaken safely.
The plan is primarily formulated for a ‘typical’ winter, with consideration also given to how a harsher winter would be handled. If the severity or duration of a cold spell is exceptional, the management of the winter service will be executed by Mayo County Council senior management team, which will decide if it will be necessary to enact its Major Emergency Plan.
Rock salt is the most commonly used de-icing material and is the most suitable for Mayo County Council’s equipment. Grit is rarely used because of the excessive wear on equipment.
Salt procurement and distribution is managed nationally by the National Roads Authority and each storage location will be filled at the beginning of the season and again prior to the Christmas shutdown, depending on the availability of salt. A minimum salt stock level of 4,000 tonnes is to be maintained in storage.
Salt will be stored in barns (Ballina, Castlebar, Claremorris and Kilkelly) or other designated indoor storage sheds (Ballinrobe and Westport) where possible. Otherwise salt should be stored outdoors in designated compounds (Achill and Belmullet).
During extended bouts of severe winter weather, stockpiles of grit may be made available for use by the public when resources allow. These stockpiles will be placed at strategic locations that will be listed on the Mayo County Council website.