Council chief: gritters not to blame for snow chaos (From Echo)

Hmmm, strange that the A13 in Hadleigh, Thundersley & Benfleet was able to be treated, despite suffering the same conditions......

Funny how rods up to the Southend municipal boundary - gritted by Essex County Council - were good, and as soon as you entered Southend they were sheet ice.

Shoebury_Cyclist wrote:
Funny how rods up to the Southend municipal boundary - gritted by Essex County Council - were good, and as soon as you entered Southend they were sheet ice.

* 'roads'.

Obviously the wrong type of snow.

Yes but as many rail commuters will testify, it was pretty localised. Colleagues in surrounding areas were telling me that they didn't have it nearly as bad.
Kent by all accounts was far worse with friends of mine taking 6.5 hours to travel their usual 20 minutes.
I'm surprised by only 4 Gritters, but the explanation seems reasonable.
Perhaps the biggest problem and cause of incidents was usual incompetence driving in these conditions, lack of Snow tyres and people not using headlights..... Just a thought ;)

Strange how noone in this area saw the gritters until 2030hrs plus? Yet they'd been out all day - not in Southend they weren't - another load of Tory lies!

Where did he get a temperature of -10 from?? Maybe 2 degrees below but 10?? Never!

They seem to think a chill factor is a real temperature instead of a perceived one.

If these mysterious stealth-gritters were out 'all weekend' then presumably SBC's transport clown-in-chief will be able to furnish us with details of which roads were gritted and when.

I'm guessing I already know the answer to this, but did whoever namelessly filed this report actually try to press for answers, or did the echo just chop up a press release to sound as if a reporter spoke to someone?

perini wrote:
Strange how noone in this area saw the gritters until 2030hrs plus? Yet they'd been out all day - not in Southend they weren't - another load of Tory lies!

"However, he pointed out wet weather during the morning meant the council was unable to send out its trucks out until the afternoon, as grit washes off damp surfaces."

What lies? With only 4 trucks in the area, its quite possible 'some' people didnt see them out.

You really think it would have been any different under another administration?
I guarantee you would not be on here praising the Tory's had there been no issues.

It was localised - I went to Basildon at 6.30 and there was hardly any snow/ice after Hadleigh.
I went to Leigh Station at 8.45 having left my house in a light flurry of snow and when I hit Belton Hill it was a bit of a blizzard.
I got stuck in the Leigh Car Park (Fool) for 3 hrs having walked home in carpet slippers and a tee shirt to call a recovery truck.
The recovery trucker helped half a dozen motorists stuck on Belton Hill before we got to my car.
There was no grit and it was impossible to get a grip.
I learnt a lot about not driving if you don't have to !

Shoebury_Cyclist wrote:
Funny how rods up to the Southend municipal boundary - gritted by Essex County Council - were good, and as soon as you entered Southend they were sheet ice.

exactly the same as last time - Massive difference the moment you hit southend boundary. Maybe the snow is specific to Southend???

I am currently based in Leatherhead, and had to drive back that night. The snow was settling on the M25, and with a low fuel warning after sitting in traffic for 2 and a half hours from J6 to J5, I decided to bail and try to find a route, or at least a fuel station, around Sevenoaks.

Gridlock, roads were sheet ice, and at a standstill. After another hour and a half going nowhere on the A25 i decided to try the M25 again, I'm oging to run out of fuel anyway, least there's a hard shoulder on the motorway. Luckily I didn't - total journey time - 6.5 hours.

One of my colleagues lives in Brighton. He left the same time as me - 6pm. However, he didn't get home until 7.30am the following morning. He didn't stop, didn't wait at the services, just queued.

A couple of hours in Southend? At least you could have found somewhere to stop, got out and walked. Hard to do that on a Motorway.

BASILBRUSH wrote:

perini wrote: Strange how noone in this area saw the gritters until 2030hrs plus? Yet they'd been out all day - not in Southend they weren't - another load of Tory lies!

"However, he pointed out wet weather during the morning meant the council was unable to send out its trucks out until the afternoon, as grit washes off damp surfaces." What lies? With only 4 trucks in the area, its quite possible 'some' people didnt see them out. You really think it would have been any different under another administration? I guarantee you would not be on here praising the Tory's had there been no issues.

Don't you find it strange that the Fire Brigade, when called out to an accident, commented on lack of gritting; the bus service chief who took the decision to cancel buses because of the state of the roads all agree with the thousands of motorists who also noted no roads were gritted - yet the council muppet getting the grief swears blind they were out and about. Trying to justify yet another c8ck up methinks!

j-w wrote:
They seem to think a chill factor is a real temperature instead of a perceived one.

It might be the case that a -2 overnight, if the wind's not blowing, would be insufficient to cool day-warmed roads enough for ice to form before the dawn. Strong winds at -2 would cool a non-frozen road to -2 more quickly.

"Windchill of -10" isn't just for warm-blooded animals who experience a cooling sensation as though the temperature was -10, it works for any body (such as a road) with a temperature above ambient. It tells you something about how quickly that body will reach the ambient temperature.

Wikipedia doesn't mention non-human windchill - I don't know why. Maybe I'm wrong.

Sean4u wrote:

j-w wrote:
They seem to think a chill factor is a real temperature instead of a perceived one.

It might be the case that a -2 overnight, if the wind's not blowing, would be insufficient to cool day-warmed roads enough for ice to form before the dawn. Strong winds at -2 would cool a non-frozen road to -2 more quickly.

"Windchill of -10" isn't just for warm-blooded animals who experience a cooling sensation as though the temperature was -10, it works for any body (such as a road) with a temperature above ambient. It tells you something about how quickly that body will reach the ambient temperature.

Wikipedia doesn't mention non-human windchill - I don't know why. Maybe I'm wrong.

Trouble is, a quoted windchill of "-10" is calibrated to human sensation. The closer a body is to the ambient temperature, the less the windchill effect. Therefore as roads get close to freezing, this added chill effect will all but disappear.

Speaking of 'disappearing' - reminds me of SBC's integrity when it comes to owning up.

Any chance the echo could address this with SBC rather than just acting as their mouthpiece?

hothead wrote:

Shoebury_Cyclist wrote:
Funny how rods up to the Southend municipal boundary - gritted by Essex County Council - were good, and as soon as you entered Southend they were sheet ice.

exactly the same as last time - Massive difference the moment you hit southend boundary. Maybe the snow is specific to Southend???

Yes of course it is!

Haven't you ever wondered why Kent always cops it more than Southend? It's because they stick out into the North Sea more, and it is often where the NE winds bringing the snow make landfall.

I can point to a number of times that my parents in Thorpe Bay have had worse snow than us in Leigh - same issue. And on Monday night / Tuesday, that's again exactly what happened to Southend compared with the rest of south Essex.

OK...
1. Four trucks and three quads are never going to cover all the main roads in this town so the council need to double the numbers.
2. Why were some roads coverd twice (I know for a fact) but others not touched, Southchurch Road, for example?
3. Why were some minor roads gritted (even twice) when some major roads were not?
4. Why did they pack up at around 1am? They did not carry on all night as Mr Cox suggested. Again, I know this.
5. It seems Mr Cox does not know what is going on with the gritting in this town and, therefore, is not suitable for his responsibilities. He needs to collate all the logs from the gritting managers and come clean.

Always worrying when a councillor comes out with an outright lie. The main roads were sheet ice because no grit had been laid down at all. Anyone who drove that day or like me had the **** near impossible task of riding a motorbike home on it, knows.

I was on London Road Leigh all day until i drove to Tesco(127)....no big gritting trucks all day, it was blowing a blizzard for 15 mins around 3pm on...then stops....then it did this on and off for hours till late at night, the first spotted by me was around 9pm around The Elms...as you can't really miss them, so presuming they where in London Road SOS around 7-8pm as it must of took an hour to get to Leigh Elms as it was chock-a-block with traffic.
I was on the A127 prince Ave at 5.pm....lethal road surface 5mph was safe as you could not brake hard, no evidence of grit....as when grit is added the ice melts.

I would say the trucks were'nt mobilised for the A127/A13 until 6-7pm.....far too late as the carnage told.

Quote Cllr Cox:"I will defend the gritters to the hilt".
-
I think it may be time to test this out. Something does not add up. Mr Cox gives us his "spin" yet all sorts of evidence is heavily stacked against what he says. I have a feeling his statement to "...defend the gritters to the hilt" may come back to haunt him.

How about putting gps in the gritters, and have an interactive map so as people can see exactly where they have been, where they are now, and where they are going.

"Tony Cox, the Tory councillor responsible for transport at Southend Council, defended his team’s actions yesterday "

Nothing like manning up & taking responsibility is there tony ?

#Cox out.

Nebs wrote:
How about putting gps in the gritters, and have an interactive map so as people can see exactly where they have been, where they are now, and where they are going.

Yes, exactly like ECC.
However, I feel not is all that it seems at gritting towers. Someone, somewhere is trying to cover up the gritting inefficiencies. There is quite a bit of evidence to support this and while these inefficiencies are rife I doubt SBC will ever entertain gps on the gritting trucks (and quads). After all, they would not want to throw more fuel on their "out of control" fire... someones political career may go up in flames.

What a load of rubbish! All areas outside of the Southend Borough were fine, roads had been gritted and were clear. Not a gritter in sight in the Southend Borough all day and night!

zipster31 wrote:
What a load of rubbish! All areas outside of the Southend Borough were fine, roads had been gritted and were clear. Not a gritter in sight in the Southend Borough all day and night!

Can we assume that you, along with thousands of others, think Mr Cox isn't quite telling the truth?

Rubbish - the gritters should have been out well before the rush hour on Monday as had outside of Southend. bad planning, bad decision and bad execution.

What a load of clap trap this council come out with, the London Road at Leigh was never gritted, and that was at 5.30 a.m.

mr Cox I have been told was contacted at 4.30 to ask were are the gritters.
No answer.
At 5.30 the senior council person for gritters I was told was attempted to be contacted but was busy in a meeting and could not be distrurted.
I also know that a number of coucillors were out actually shoveling snow to try and get vehicles moving.
.

The facts that I can, so far, establish:
1. It seems, the gritters were not out until it was too late.
2. Only some roads were gritted and with so few gritting vehicles this is no surprise.
3. Some roads were gritted twice whereas some were not gritted at all.
4. Some minor roads that are NOT on the designated gritting list were gritted.
5. Gritters STOPPED gritting at approximately 1am or shortly afterwards and NOT through the night.
-
Now, this does not look too good from where I am sitting. Maybe Mr Cox is "assuming" what he has told us is what actually happened and is oblivious to what really happened. Either way, it seems he is not in full control of this gritting situation.

emcee wrote:
The facts that I can, so far, establish:
1. It seems, the gritters were not out until it was too late.
2. Only some roads were gritted and with so few gritting vehicles this is no surprise.
3. Some roads were gritted twice whereas some were not gritted at all.
4. Some minor roads that are NOT on the designated gritting list were gritted.
5. Gritters STOPPED gritting at approximately 1am or shortly afterwards and NOT through the night.
-
Now, this does not look too good from where I am sitting. Maybe Mr Cox is "assuming" what he has told us is what actually happened and is oblivious to what really happened. Either way, it seems he is not in full control of this gritting situation.

Actually let me clarify:
2.Some roads were gritted twice whereas MOST were not gritted at all.
5.Gritters STOPPED gritting at approximately 1am, or shortly afterwards, and did NOT go on through the night.

Mr Cox - over to you? Are you being spoon fed dis-information or are all us local people who were caught up in this debacle for hours making it up? Time to admit you got it wrong and ensure it never happens again.
Echo - can't you try and get a real response from Mr Cox

There's an easy answer here. Scrap Southend Council and merge the borough back into Essex County Council.

That gets rid of duplication, and rather than having 4 gritters only for Southend (which can't cope) they can be used by ECC as well as ECC fleet (which obviously can cope as they gritted up to the Southend boundary).

Efficiency of scale I believe is the term. It's not only gritting that this can be applied to.

perini, emcee, siddymint, gary 51, jolllyboy, zipster3, DogsMessInLeigh

and all the other thicker than brown smelly stuff posters why not actually learn something about gritting before making yourselves look even more stupid than your names suggest.

The roads were wet, you can not grit on wet roads as the grit washes off, Southend was hit worse than much of the rest of Essex, if the council had gritted on the wet roads and then the weather turned for the better you would all be moaning the council had wasted the grit.

If you think you can do a better job why not go to the council and submit a tender to take over the operation of gritting...

No thought not

Joe Wildman-Clark wrote:
perini, emcee, siddymint, gary 51, jolllyboy, zipster3, DogsMessInLeigh

and all the other thicker than brown smelly stuff posters why not actually learn something about gritting before making yourselves look even more stupid than your names suggest.

The roads were wet, you can not grit on wet roads as the grit washes off, Southend was hit worse than much of the rest of Essex, if the council had gritted on the wet roads and then the weather turned for the better you would all be moaning the council had wasted the grit.

If you think you can do a better job why not go to the council and submit a tender to take over the operation of gritting...

No thought not

Ho Hum.