Gritting – extend gritting routes provide salt to volunteers

I added two items as follows to the agenda as a result of recent experience with snow and ice.

The first relates to the gritting routes:
“Can we have a report on the requests made by members of the public for gritting over and above that done by Kildare County Council, what scope is there to include additional locations on the griitting routes?”

The report I received stated: As the Councillors are aware the Council currently operate 12 salting routes.  Each of these routes have been configured in such away to maximise the  effectiveness of the resources available ie. manpower, equipment and salt.  Routes are priotised based on road classification, traffic volumes, strategic importance etc. In order to add this section of road the salting programme it requires the following:
(a)  Remove an existing section of road which is currently being salted from the  salting programme.
or
(b)  Add an additional truck to the salting route.
Currently the Transportation Department is not in a position to carry out either of  these options but the situation will be kept under review. With regard to requests received by members of the public, I can confirm that there were a large number of requests that come to the Council from many different sources and that the Council  dealt with each request based on its merits.

I again pointed to locations that need to be gritted such as Riverforest Main Avenue in order that the 66A bus can serve the 1800 homes in this part of the Town.   I again pointed out that if a road is on a bus route it must be gritted.   Should the network changes happen as outlined above on both the 66 & 67 services,  more sections of road will need to be gritted in order to facilitate the bus service.

The second motion related to how volunteers can be assisted:
Can we make arrangements for salt to be deposited in locations that are particularly problematic such as housing estates that are on hillsides?

Report: The Council can provide some materials for usage by local communities during severe winter conditions.  The only proviso is that that the Council has enough materials for their own usage first.  The other issues that need to be considered are;where such material would be deposited and who would take responsibility for it.  Furthermore, I would suggest, having regard to the severe winters that we are      experiencing, that each household invest in a snow shovel and some grit or salt to keep the drive and footpaths around our own properties clear.

We were also told at the meeting that the National Roads Authority now co-ordinate the  purchase of  salt,  they also determine the priorities.    I pointed out that while it is useful to have one coordinating body,  they are simply underproviding.   If we are to avoid major hospital costs,   which sometimes involve  life changing injuries to pedestrians,   pedestrians  must also be provided for.  The voluntary efforts of our  communities must be assisted by a strategy to provide materials,   rather than the current approach,    which is about providing    crumbs from the table if there are any crumbs left.

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Posted by catherinemurphy on December 27, 2010. Filed under Ardclough,Celbridge,Clane,Kilcock,Kildare,Leixlip,Maynooth,Naas,Straffan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.