Council defends their position on gritting roads

Council defends big freeze policy


County Secretary states Mayo has ‘the best prepared local authority’

Anton McNulty and Áine Ryan

WITH the big freeze set to continue up until at least the weekend, Mayo County Council has defended its decision to grit only national and regional roads and claims it is the best prepared local authority to deal with the emergency situation.
As the big freeze enters its third week, Met Éireann have confirmed that the cold snap will continue throughout the week with temperatures again expected to drop to around -5 degrees. Today (Tuesday), northerly winds from the arctic are expected, again bringing wintry showers to many parts of the county.
Mayo County Council have come in for criticism by some people for their decision to only grit national and regional roads, with many living in rural areas complaining they have been left housebound.
Sinn Féin councillor, Gerry Murray called on the Council to consider an offer from the IFA to assist in treating minor roads, while photographer, Tommy Eibrand from Glensaul, Tourmakeady said he was housebound from Christmas up until last Saturday, January 2, and said it was ‘criminal’ that local roads were not gritted.
However, John Condon, County Secretary, defended the Council’s position on gritting roads and said it would be impossible to grit all the roads. He told The Mayo News that unlike other local authorities, Mayo still had reserves of salt and claimed they were the best prepared local authority to deal with the emergency.
“While we are only gritting about ten per cent of our entire road network, we are covering roads which have about 80 per cent of the traffic. We are the best prepared to deal with this over virtually every other local authority in the country. Others ran low on salt last week while we didn’t and we had a helpline in place and were able to respond to emergencies when others didn’t.
“We received a total of 120 calls on our emergency helpline with about two-thirds of them from people wanting roads to be gritted. We were not in a position to do that but we were able to help people with emergencies such as burst pipes. If we were not able to help we would transfer them onto another agency and while some were not happy that we were not gritting at least they were in a position to get an answer,” he said.
Mr Condon said that on average it costs €1 million to grit roads every year but could not say how much the current gritting would cost the council. While some Council’s have described their salt reserves as worryingly low, Mr Condon said they still had reserves of salt but could not give a commitment of how long it will last.
“We used a lot of salt in the last week or so and we are sourcing more from different suppliers in Cork, Limerick and Carrickfergus. We are dealing with a number of suppliers because we do not want to rely on only one if they start running out of salt. We are working towards the weekend but I cannot give a commitment we will have enough because if it snows tomorrow that could cause problems. It might not freeze every night and those are the issues we are facing,” he said.
Speaking to The Mayo News at the weekend, Mr Ger Reidy, an engineer with Mayo County Council, said that, in his memory, ‘the roads had never been so bad in certain parts of the county’.
“I think the last freeze-up was in 2000 but it wasn’t as bad and didn’t last as long. The initial problem with this icy spell was that it snowed and then partially melted and then snowed again. This is when it became really dangerous,” Ger Reidy explained.
“County council staff have been out working from early morning gritting the roads. But the expectation has changed over the years. Years ago they were not salted. The roads would have been cleared here and there but now the public is demanding that roads are cleared and gritted all over the place,” he continued.
“Salt costs a huge amount of money and is a huge drain on our resources. It has been very hard to keep our stores of salt,” Ger Reidy added.
He also observed that perhaps it was ‘less neighbourliness and community spirit nowadays’, which exacerbated the numbers of people marooned and isolated over the Christmas period.
However, Ger Reidy also warned: “It is ridiculous to expect the council to go down every back road and boreen. In the Westport Electoral Area alone there are 450 miles of public roads and throughout the entire county there are thousands of miles of roadways.”
The icy conditions has also resulted in a busy festive period for Mayo General Hospital with an increased number of people presenting with injuries resulting from slips and falls due to the severe weather conditions, many of which were serious and required surgery.
Between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve, the hospital’s A&E had approximately 182 presentations as a result of injuries associated with weather conditions, with 30 cases requiring immediate surgery. As the icy conditions are forecast to continue over the next week or so, management at the hospital are asking people to take extra care.
“Our advice is to try and avoid making any unnecessary journeys on foot or by car. If you do need to go out make sure you are wearing appropriate footwear and take extra care and to contact your GP, in the first instance, if you are feeling unwell or have sustained an injury.”