Metropol

We have gritters and snowploughs. But what we don't have, and need, is those snow sweepers that can also remove compacted ice from the roads.

Critique wrote:Gareth, you must be the lucky ones in Suffolk, as in my area of the county, or even just of Ipswich, very little grit is being laid! My road is constantly a death-trap, being on a steep hill, the road is currently a mixture of slush and black ice. The schools here were mostly open, they dealt with that quite quickly, although there were a few reports that staff hadn't taken coming into school all that well.

However, we do seem to be in a lucky area, as ParcelForce are making deliveries in their vans at the moment, as they've just delivered a package to Mrs No.12 around the corner!

I suppose it depends on how far away you are to a gritted route. My boyfriend lives in East Ipswich and his road is very snowy but it isn't far to the gritted route. Has stopped the boy racers though! Post and bin collections haven't stopped although Suffolk Coastal announced this week that they've equipped their brown bin collectors with shovels to loosen frozen materials in the bins!

As a teacher I can confirm that opening didn't go down too well with either the students or staff although we accepted that the roads being cleared means we stay open... not sure the students agree though!

My local area is literally a few corners and roads of one of the main roads into town centre. They've managed to clear the main road, it's just all the compacted snow that isn't budging causing problems now. A lot of slush is forming around now, and it's not looking good. Not too cold in the area now though.

Black ice over the next few days, sounds like great fun.

Alexia wrote:We are just not prepared for conditions like this. I'd have preferred to see a few more snow ploughs on the roads. Gritting isn't going to work when there's 7 inches of snow falling on already compacted snow from the weekend.

I don't think most roads are really set up for ploughs in the UK. Certainly there would be complaints from those parked along the road that their car was part-buried by the snow displaced by the plough. And then there's things like speed bumps of course - you can't plough a street with any sort of traffic calming.

You are right about grit though. AIUI it is just rock salt, and therefore being salt it works by changing the freezing point of water to -7c. So in many parts of the country, including the last few weeks in Scotland, it's mostly useless. It's no good at anything under -7c

I have to say I'm impressed with Virgin trains. The service home was horrifically slow due to congestion and other trains being delayed, so they served everybody free coffee at around midnight - and when my connection was cancelled, they put on a taxi to take me the rest of the way home. I think I will send them a thank you letter.

Under the National Conditions of Carriage a train operator, in this case, Virgin Trains, have to provide onward transport if there is no onward connection. Also I think it states something about providing refreshments also. I know South West Trains carry bottled water on board their long-distance services (ie Exeter/Weymouth/Portsmouth-Waterloo) in the summer in case the train gets delayed and everybody gets heat exhaustion.

Yes, if there are no onward connections then the train operator that has caused the delay has an obligation to either get you road transport back to your destination station or put you in a hotel until you can make the journey.

Mind you though, the thank you letter wouldn't go amiss as things don't always tend to go as they should when there's disruption. But I'm biased in this situation.